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Asia Pacific|Sirikit, Thailand’s Former Queen, Is Dead at 93
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/world/asia/queen-sirikit-thailand-dead.html
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As the glamorous wife of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, she supported local causes and traveled the world, charming government leaders and the public.
Oct. 24, 2025, 7:08 p.m. ET
Sirikit, the former queen of Thailand and the widow of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose portraits appeared together for decades in houses and shops around the country, died on Friday night in a hospital in Bangkok, according to a statement from the royal palace. She was 93.
The palace statement gave the cause of death as complications from blood sepsis. The former queen had rarely appeared in public since she had a debilitating stroke in 2012.
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King Bhumibol, the world’s longest-serving head of state, died in 2016, and was succeeded by the couple’s son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Sirikit, who was born into royalty as the daughter of a prince, met the young King Bhumibol as a teenager when she was living in France, where her father was the Thai ambassador. They married on April 28, 1950, when she was 18, a week before his coronation on May 5.
He was crowned as Rama IX of the Chakri Dynasty, and she received the royal title Somdet Phra Nang Chao Sirikit Phra Borommarachininat; she was widely believed to be the world’s longest-serving queen consort. Queen Sirikit had three daughters in addition to their son.
