Prapaporn Choeiwadkoh, a 45-year-old politician from the Sukhothai province of Thailand, was suspended by the Thai Democrat Party this week after her 64-year-old husband caught her in bed with the couple’s 24-year-old adopted son Phra Maha, a Buddhist monk.
The scandal has become a social media sensation across Southeast Asia, especially in China, where developments in the case are followed as closely as any soap opera.
“A 64-year-old husband, a 45-year-old wife, and a 24-year-old adopted son who is a monk? This is such a mess. It sounds more like keeping a boy-toy rather than adoption. Even dramas don’t dare to script this,” said a typical Chinese social media user quoted by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Wednesday.,
“This news is explosive, with too many elements. It sounds like pure fiction. The world of the wealthy is indeed fascinating and chaotic,” said another.
Prapaporn, known to her supporters as “Madam Ple,” joined the Thai Democrat Party in March 2023. She currently serves as president of a chamber of commerce in her home province of Sukhothai, where she is considered influential and has an avid social media following. Democrat Party leaders said she has been inactive in party affairs since last May’s general elections and has never held an official position within their organization.
Prapaporn and her husband, a wealthy real estate developer who goes by the name “Ti,” adopted the young monk Phra Maha from a temple last year, ostensibly because Prapaporn “felt sorry” for his circumstances.
The UK Daily Mail quoted Ti saying that his wife’s fondness for young monks seemed a bit suspicious at the time, and even more so in retrospect.
“My wife has always been very religious. We even met at the local temple. But recently I noticed that she was spending more time with the young monks,” he said.
“I even saw her go into a monk’s cabin when the curtains were closed. I knocked on the door for a long time but nobody answered. When she came out I was suspicious, but she said she had been praying with the monk,” he said.
Ti grew increasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Phra Maha over the past year. The situation came to a head when she did not answer his calls while he was out of town. He drove home from Bangkok, a trip of about five and a half hours, and barged into couple’s bedroom with his video camera running, catching Prapaporn and the monk naked under the sheets.
“Are you two very happy?” Ti can be heard snarling at his startled wife and paramour in the video that would become a viral sensation.
“I was so angry when I found them together, I feel so betrayed. I had brought her gold and given her many gifts,” he said in a subsequent interview. “With regards to this boy, I think that he tricked my wife and seduced her.”
Prapaporn told reporters that she and Phra Maha did not have sex.
“Nothing happened, it’s not what it looks like in the video. He had some problems, so we were just talking together, and then we were going to shower,” she said, not really doing much to help her case.
According to the SCMP, Phra Maha has “left the monkhood and gone into hiding.” Not only are Buddhist monks supposed to remain celibate, but they are not permitted to be alone in a room with a woman. Nude counseling sessions under the bedroom sheets with attractive married women are simply out of the question.