The Kelantan Palace has issued a rare statement to counter social media posts put up by the former wife of former king Sultan Muhammad V.

Royal household comptroller Nik Mohd Shafriman Nik Hassan said in a statement that the palace was deeply upset and condemned the dissemination of private pictures of Sultan Muhammad V.

It also condemned the inappropriate posts on his private and personal affairs.

Only official statements issued by the Kelantan palace and its ruler, Sultan Muhammad V, can be considered as accurate information and as points of reference for Malaysians, as well as the media, the palace insisted.

Palace statement

Nik Mohd said on Friday, Sept. 6: “The Kelantan Palace has decided to deviate from the norm and respond to untrue and defamatory statements on social media to defuse the confusion such postings have caused.”

“His Royal Highness Sultan Muhammad V as the Kelantan ruler should not be associated with slander... on social media. These lies have defamed the Kelantan Sultanate and royal family."

“HRH Sultan of Kelantan also expresses his regret over the personal choices made in his private life that has caused confusion among Malaysians, leading to dissension on social media when fuelled with unreliable hearsay.”

The public has been urged not to be swayed by the social media posts by the former Miss Moscow beauty queen ex-wife of the monarch.

Background

Sultan Muhammad V’s former wife, Rihana Oksana Veovodina, hinted on Instagram she was ready to go public about what happened to her marriage and divorce.

She posted in an initial Instagram post on Monday, Sept. 2, 2019, followed by another on Thursday morning, Sept. 5.

Both of these posts contained personal photos of the Sultan that were candid and not professionally taken.

The Thursday post on Instagram talked about Rihana's first meeting with the Kelantan ruler.

Rihana said she knew the ruler would be the father of her children the first time they met, as she recounted in the post titled, “The story of our acquaintance”.

“Before my husband insisted on moving to Malaysia, I asked him if he was married and had any children. He told me that he got divorced in 2015 because his ex-wife from Czech Republic had lied to him that she was not married and according to the documents she was not divorced in her country at that time," she posted.

“He shared with me that women always used him for money and that is why nobody gave him any babies.”

The 27-year-old former beauty queen said the monarch had confided in her his “biggest dream” of having children.

More to come?

The post ended with a promise of more to come.

She said before that telling the truth about their relationship and marriage would make her feel better.

One-year marriage

Rihana and Sultan Muhammad V divorced in June 2019 in Singapore.

They had married in 2018 in the same month.

On Jan. 6, Sultan Muhammad V abdicated the throne.

His term was only up in 2021.

He is the only Malaysian king to have done so.

Rihana gave birth to a son named Ismail Leon.

The sultan’s lawyers have hinted that the monarch might not be the baby’s father.

Mother and child are believed to have been residing in Moscow for quite a while now.