Ex-monk Thank still squeaky clean

 

A lot of guys have trouble readjusting to the layman’s life after taking their merit-boosting turn as a monk, and it certainly must be even harder for celebrities when they shuck the saffron robes.

Take actor Pongsakorn “Thank” Mahapaoraya, for example. His hair’s only just starting to grow back after almost three years in the monkhood, and if he had his druthers, he’d prefer to keep things quiet a little while longer.

But he’s an actor as well as a stepson of Democrat warlord Korn Chatikavanij, and a cousin in public relations needed him to brighten up a press conference last Wednesday at Central Lat Phrao, where they were unveiling a new painkilling drug. Thank might have wanted to gobble a few pills himself when reporters surged at him begging for quotable quotes.

They weren’t asking what happened to his eyebrows. They wanted to know about his love life. Not that he had much to report from the last three years, but just before he was ordained, he’d had a high-profile fling with TV star Pattaratida “Tangmo” Patcharaveerapong.

No, it wasn’t their break-up that drove him into the monkhood. In fact he was ready to do his duty as a young Buddhist male, and evidently enjoyed the life so much that he stayed quite a while.

The press attention shook him up – he just wasn’t ready for a big social event like that, he said, although he’s already had several offers of work since word spread that he was no longer a monk. Instead, Thank has been voluntarily conducting dharma lessons for interested people, but he admitted he felt like he was simply drifting at the moment, just as he always did. His time at the temple didn’t give his attention a laser-beam focus, but he does feel more mature now and wants to work at something beneficial to society.

We wish Thank well, but advise him to hone that focus a little more. There are a lot of beautiful young women in Celebrity Land – and a lot of gossips too.