Nene Royal did great, and that is good enough - Bangkok Post

Thailand should celebrate Nene Royal for the person she is, not the person it expects her to be. (facebook.com/NeneRoyalMusic) As we offer much-deserved congratulations to 16-year-old Nene Royal for winning America’s Got Talent 2026, it feels like a plea also must be made. Not to the young rocker living her best life, but to those who feel compelled to appoint any Thai who has achieved international fame an ambassador of “Thai culture”.

It could be argued that globally recognisable Thais become representatives of this relatively low-profile nation by default, but the role cast upon them involuntarily is frequently made impossible and thankless by the Thai people themselves.

There is a reflexive urge by many here to foist all of the nation’s hopes for prominence onto anyone currently in the global spotlight, but in doing so they also set a standard for that celebrity that is usually both insurmountable and unfair.

Thai celebrities on the world stage have to be all things to all people, even if that is in competition with their particular brand of fame or their own agency. They have to absolutely love all aspects of Thai culture, actively be promoting their homeland at all times and adhere to the highest conservative standards of the country, even when none of these qualities should be realistically expected.

The clearest proof of this may be the many times confounding criticism has befallen Lalisa “Lisa” Manobal, the Buri Ram native who has become one of the most recognisable people in the world, as part of the K-pop mega-group Blackpink.  

In 2023, a cover shoot for Bazaar magazine led to Lisa being scolded by Thai netizens when an almost imperceptible sliver of her new tattoo was detected.

“Why did she get a tattoo on her beautiful skin? Thai people consider getting a tattoo as making you a bad woman,” one Twitter poster lamented. “I’m warning you with good intentions, you can’t get a job with a tattoo and any elders who see it won’t like it, especially if they’re government officials.”

Another young Thai woman famed for her beauty, Davika “Mai” Hoorne, was called out in 2016 after forgetting the name of the fashion house behind her dress while at the Cannes film festival.

It would be fair for the providers of that outfit to be disappointed over not receiving due credit, but the saga that unfolded would soon devolve into accusations that she was somehow ashamed to be wearing a creation from Thailand.

The young rapper Milli, aka Danupha Khanatheerakul, has been noted for actively embracing opportunities to represent Thailand on major world stages. Yet she still could not escape the judgemental eyes of her compatriots.

The artist who famously incorporated snacking on mango and sticky rice into her set at Coachella 2022 would be hit by controversy at home for using “Luu language”, a system of slang originating from within Thailand’s transgender community.

The criticism lobbed at her would be about the inappropriateness of the terms and how she was undermining proper Thai conduct.

Then there is the man who put Thai action on the global map. Tatchakorn “Tony Jaa” Yeerum was subjected to cultural pressures during his rise to fame in Hollywood.

Despite being free of any contracts at home, Tony Jaa appeared to have rubbed Sahamongkol Film International president Somsak “Sia Jiang” Techaratanaprasert the wrong way, just before he was set to play a significant role in Fast and Furious 7.

Sia Jiang said that while he was “happy that Tony Jaa would appear in a foreign film” he should have made sure to get “the foreign agency to contact me and get my consent first”.

His only reasoning was that it was the “correct” way to go about transcending the local film industry that had served as Jaa’s stepping stone.

Even while playing down any anger over the perceived snub, the Thai production house still secured a court injunction that delayed screening of the seventh instalment of the Fast and Furious franchise in Thailand.

This phenomenon also happens in the world of sport, where arguably more of Thailand’s most notable names are generated.

Earlier this year, Thai boxing phenom Tinnakorn Srisawat, better known as Rodtang Jitmuangnon, found himself at odds with the sport’s top house, ONE Championship, accusing the promoter of forging signatures and essentially duping him into contracts that kept him under its control despite his ties having expired.

While mediation has mostly quelled the back and forth between Rodtang and the camp, comments were made during its height painting the athlete as turning his back on those who helped him get his start.

They included Jitmuangnon Gym head Soonthree Lohaphak reminding the fighter to “never be ungrateful to anyone”.

Followers of Muay Thai likely would have seen the resemblance the tiff bore to what happened with Sombat Banchamek, the generational talent known as Buakaw, in 2012, when his decision to move on from Por. Pramuk Gym resulted in the management basically painting him as disloyal.

Eerily similar to what would happen in 2026, Por. Pramuk Gym owner Pramuk Rojanatan would publicly state “We took him in when he was just a kid with nothing … We built him into a global star. For him to walk away and fight on another promoter’s show without talking to us is something we cannot accept”.

From the outside looking in, both cases may only appear to centre around loyalty to the gyms and managers, but many here likely understand the cultural subtext.

The boxers were being chastised for being “buffaloes who forgot their feet”, the Thai equivalent of getting “forgetting one’s roots”.

How else could it be explained as to why Buakaw felt the need to later write “Let me say this again: Buakaw is 100% Thai. I am not someone from another country who got rich and famous in Thailand only to forget my roots and betray the motherland.”

This vague sense that Thai-affiliated athletes owe some sort of debt not only to their handlers but to the nation as a whole is so reflexive it might even be why international golf superstar Tiger Woods has only set foot back in the country once in the past 30 years.

During the height of his popularity in the early 2000s, the half-Thai (but completely US-raised) Woods took a trip to the homeland of his mother, making a paid appearance at Alpine Golf & Sports Club.

The tumultuous trip included a meeting with protesting ex-employees of Nike, and devoting 15 minutes to receiving an honorary doctorate.

Without dwelling too much on the circumstances, the ace’s approach to a country he had barely spent any time in somehow led to his doctor Prasong Pathom being quoted at the time as saying: “He basically has forgotten the Thai people. … He is a great golfer and has done some good with his foundation … but a number of Thais see it as nothing more than a token gesture.”

All of these examples are being presented to point out that it is unfair for any noted citizens of Thailand to suddenly have to serve as envoys for the country’s values and practices, and that it becomes a disservice to Thailand itself to weigh its celebrities down with such a burden.

If the belief is that there was some intangible quality of being Thai that led to the success of Nene Royal, then the nation should simply take pride in that thought and have faith that it will continue to drive her towards greater achievements.

The true spirit of Thai affection would dictate that saying congratulations to Rattikarn “Praew” Amloy should be just that, an expression of happiness over the triumph of a young woman who applied herself and persevered through incredible odds.

Vanich Kittichai is one of Bangkok Post's opinion contributors.