Finally granted a residency permit in 1999, and now wealthy enough to support himself on the outside, Nasseri did not leave Paris National Airport until he fell ill in 2006. (Update: see Reinventing Mehran Nasseri.)
As of 2004
As of the summer of 2004, Nasseri is still living in the airport. He does not lack for money — Dreamworks paid him a rumored $250,000 for the rights to his story.
He had no bank accounts, so the checks were being held by Christian Bourguet, the famous lawyer who took on his case a decade ago.
As for the plastic red bench, which has served as his de facto home for the last 15 years and must by now be a collector’s item, he says, “I’ll take it to DreamWorks… and send it by FedEx.” [NYT]
Search for Mehran Karimi Nasseri …
2006-2008
Tina comments:
Nasseri’s life at the airport ended in July 2006 when he was hospitalized and his sitting place dismantled. Towards the end of January 2007, he left the hospital and was looked after by the airport’s branch of the French Red Cross; he was lodged for a few weeks in a hotel close to the airport. On March 6, 2007, he transferred to an Emmaus charity reception centre in Paris’s twentieth arrondissement. As of 2008, he continues to live in a Paris shelter.
Since 2008
I have been unable to find reliable information about Nasseri’s whereabouts and life since his transfer to a Paris shelter or halfway house in 2007. If anyone knows of his whereabouts since then, or has visited with him, please post details to this longer essay about him.
He didn’t stay there because he needed a permit to stay. He stayed there because he hated his Iranian background. Read this:
Comment by The Other 08.15.04 @ 11:39 pmhttp://the-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2004/06/sir-alfred-iranian-zelig.html
I think that this real story of an Iranian man who found self-refuge in Terminal One in the Airport of France sounds like a movie, and , indeed, became a movie in the super -rich American director in Hollywood, but what really should concern to all of us is how the world was indifferent to this man’s needs in term of communication, sense of identity, sexual life, affection, and the so called self-actualization in his life. Bear in mind that he got an education in Iran, as well, as he belonged to a totally non- Western mainstream full of conflicts that today Machiavellian want to set another war. What concern me is not the entertainment with Mehran’s peculiar life, but the social psychology of the Europeans at that time that shows, again, and again, and again, the Euro- psycho-supremacy and their fascist way to address minorities in the world. After all, everything Europeans have is old to us, either you’re African, Asian, Latin American or not Northern European at all… In short, WWII was not a coincidence…
Comment by Marlen Arguedas 07.16.08 @ 10:44 pmCHRISTIAN BOURGET ,THE LAWYER WHO REPRESENT MEHRAN KARIMI NASSERI IN 1992 THAT WAS CALLING HIMSELF ” SIR ALFRED”, KNEW THAT HE GOT A TREMENDOUS OPPORTUNITY FOR PUBLICITY AND LATER ON FOR MONEY ($300,000) US DOLLARS. BOURGET KNEW THAT KARIMI NASSERI LOST HIS MIND ISOLATE AND DEALING WITH A WESTERN WORLD OF STUPID EUROPEANS. MEHRAN COLLAPSED BUT BOURGET MADE A FORTUNE WITH HIS ILLNESS… DOES BOURGET WOULD LIVE FOREVER? JUSTICE SHOULD BE DONE! WE ARE ALREADY IN 2008, ALMOST TWO DECADES AFTER…
Comment by Marlen Arguedas 07.16.08 @ 10:56 pmI have read that Nasseri is currently in a shelter in Paris. Is this true or dated information? If it is so, does anyone know the name?
Comment by Tessa 09.24.08 @ 9:36 pmWhat happened after he went to shelter is Paris??? how is his life there and his health too??? what he does??? Does anybody knows him??? Please i want to know in detail……….
Comment by Sanjila 09.25.08 @ 12:02 amInteresting story
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Pingback by SJ’s Longest Now » Reinventing Mehran Nasseri 09.25.08 @ 6:24 amhello I’m Iranians do it for me whe Mehran Karimi Nasseri, I Gesler, he has become kerank, I would like to know how you go and where he lives now? they know who they please write to me
Comment by fardin 09.06.09 @ 4:24 pmI did some research on Mehran Karimi Nasseri.
Comment by Tina G S 05.28.10 @ 9:25 pmNasseri’s life at the airport ended in July 2006 when he was hospitalized and his sitting place dismantled. Towards the end of January 2007, he left the hospital and was looked after by the airport’s branch of the French Red Cross; he was lodged for a few weeks in a hotel close to the airport. On March 6, 2007, he transferred to an Emmaus charity reception centre in Paris’s twentieth arrondissement. As of 2008, he continues to live in a Paris shelter.
Tina, thank you kindly for the update. I’ve also posted an updated essay about Nasseri, but have no information about his life since early 2008. If anyone has a news source from 2008 or more recently stating that he continues to live in a shelter in Paris, please share it it.
Comment by metasj 06.12.10 @ 10:39 pm