i think even cecil had a column about him
He did:
I remember there always being something a bit off with him. He was offered a place in several countries multiple times but he always refused for usually petty reasons.
He was also offered residency in France, and did spend some time in a homeless shelter, but ultimately elected to go back to the airport terminal. I also saw somewhere that he got $300,000 from the movie rights to Spielberg’s The Terminal. Definitely not a rational individual.
From Cecil’s report that @Seanette linked to:
“He is mentally ill,” Dr. Philippe Bargain, the airport’s medical director, is quoted as saying.
I can see room for debate on chicken and egg here.
Someone who’s a little bit unstable could certainly be driven to overt madness first by the Kafka-esque passport / visa / nationality situation he found himself in, followed by being trapped in a terminal for years before the first realistic offer of asylum (for lack of a better word) came in.
It’s pretty evident that there are places and circumstances in this world that would convince almost anyone that sanity is not a useful strategy.
Sometimes the most rational thing you can do is to revert to complete irrationality.
I’m not sure that mental health works like that.
If I recall correctly, he had moved back into the terminal for the last several weeks before his death.