Thailand's Princess Bajrakitiyabha has died after more than three years in a coma, the royal household said on Friday morning, ending the long vigil over the eldest child of King Vajiralongkorn. She was 47.
The palace said she died at 19:48 local time the previous day in Chulalongkorn Hospital, where she had been treated since collapsing in December 2022 while exercising her dogs. Doctors later said the collapse was caused by a severely irregular heartbeat linked to a mycoplasma infection in her heart.
Bajrakitiyabha was born on 7 December 1978 to Vajiralongkorn and his first wife and cousin, Princess Soamsawali, and trained as a lawyer before earning two post-graduate degrees from Cornell University in the United States. She worked briefly at Thailand's mission to the United Nations in New York, then in the Attorney-General's offices in Bangkok and elsewhere in the country. From 2012 to 2014, she was Thailand's ambassador to Austria, where she built a relationship with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and spoke out on penal reform, especially for vulnerable women who end up in prison.
Back in Thailand, she became the UNODC's ambassador for the rule of law in South East Asia and continued to push for changes to the criminal justice system. In 2021, her father made her a chief of staff in his private bodyguard and gave her the rank of general, a move that fed talk among royalists that she could be a future successor. She also kept a public profile as a fitness enthusiast and often took part in long-distance runs.
Her death deepens the uncertainty around Thailand's royal succession. The king has not named an heir. Thai custom says the heir should be male, but a 1974 constitutional amendment allows a female to take the throne, leaving room for a choice that has been complicated for years. Vajiralongkorn has five sons, though four sons from his second marriage were disowned in 1996 and have lived with their mother in the United States since then. His fifth son, Dipangkorn, is widely regarded as the presumed heir.
For now, Bajrakitiyabha's death removes the most visible female figure ever discussed as a possible successor and leaves the throne question where it has been for years: unresolved, and still in the king's hands.
