Princess Bha, the eldest child of the Thai king who was seen as a potential successor to the throne, died on Thursday in a hospital in Bangkok, the royal palace said, after being in a coma for three and a half years. She was 47.
The princess, whose full name was Bajrakitiyabha Narendira Debyavati, had been on life support since December 2022, when she collapsed in a park in northern Thailand while running with her dogs. In May, the palace announced that she had an infection in her abdomen that caused low blood pressure and an irregular heartbeat.
Her death complicates the already murky question of succession in the Thai monarchy. King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 73, has not publicly named an heir, and some analysts saw the princess as a possible candidate to become Thailand’s first ruling queen because of her pedigree. She was the only child born to the king and his first wife, Princess Soamsawali, who is also a cousin of the king.
The monarch, whose life has been marked by scandal, has been married four times and has seven children. He has disowned four sons whom he fathered starting in 1979 with his second wife, the actress Sujarinee Vivacharawongse, before they were married.
But succession is not automatic, and the monarch is allowed to appoint his own heir. The Thai constitution also permits the country’s privy council to name a princess to the throne in the absence of an appointed successor.
Princess Bha’s death comes amid a growing wave of disillusionment with the monarchy among Thai youth. In recent years, hundreds of thousands of young people have marched in Thailand to demand reforms to the monarchy as well as to the harsh lèse-majesté law that bans criticism of the royal family.
Among supporters of the monarchy, the princess was widely seen as someone who might restore respect to a royal house that had become unpopular. Unlike her father, the princess, who was single, appeared to be free of scandal. She had one of the more illustrious résumés among his children, having served as a diplomat at the United Nations and in Austria.
“She was the hope that could carry the royal family into the future,” said Kasidit Ananthanathorn, a lecturer who studies the monarchy at Ramkhamhaeng University in Thailand.
In 2019, the king bestowed royal titles on Princess Bha and two of her half-siblings — Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti and Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana. The new titles signaled that the three were in line for royal succession.
Princess Sirivannavari, 39, a fashion designer, is the king’s only daughter with his second wife and, unlike her brothers, was not banished and stripped of her titles. Prince Dipangkorn, 21, is the king’s only child with his third wife, Srirasmi Suwadee, whom he later accused of corruption, and divorced. (He is currently married to Queen Suthida, a former flight attendant.)
Princess Bha’s sudden collapse in 2022 heightened speculation about other possible candidates to succeed her father. In 2023, two of the sons the king had disowned, Vacharaesorn and Chakriwat Vivacharawongse, made a surprise return to Thailand after living in exile in the United States for 27 years, prompting speculation that they might have been jockeying for consideration. But last June, the two men, who are American citizens, were again forced to leave Thailand.
Born on Dec. 7, 1978, Princess Bha, who also went by Ong-Bha (pronounced Ong-Pa), attended the Heathfield School, an all-girls secondary school in Ascot, England, before returning to Thailand to earn an undergraduate degree in lawat Thammasat University. She went on to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate from Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y.
She later became an assistant prosecutor in the attorney general’s office in Thailand. She went on to take diplomatic postings, serving first at the Thai Permanent Mission to the United Nations, before being appointed ambassador to Austria, Slovakia and Slovenia, positions she held from 2012 to 2014.
One of Princess Bha’s interests was the rights of female prisoners. She pushed the Thai government to submit a resolution to the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, a United Nations body, that argued women were vulnerable in a prison system that was built for men. She pushed for the U.N.’s 2010 adoption of the “Bangkok Rules,” also known as the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders.
Princess Bha ran projects to ensure that incarcerated Thai mothers were given counseling and child care services to help them re-enter society after being released, and she pushed for the humane treatment of female prisoners in places like Indonesia.
“She gave a lot of her time, which she didn’t have to do,” said Jeremy Douglas, a senior official at the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime, who knew the princess for more than two decades. “Behind the scenes, she was pushing her ideas, holding meetings, sitting down with people and brainstorming: ‘What can we do better?’”
Princess Bha is survived by her parents and six half brothers and sisters.
Kittiphum Sringammuang and Muktita Suhartono contributed reporting.
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