Mehran Karimi Nasseri has died at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. He had lived at the airport for 18 years.

The Iranian man was born in 1945, but his life changed dramatically in 1988.

When he landed in France, he did not have the required residency papers. Therefore, he was not allowed to leave the facility, which forced him to live there.

Nasseri could not go back to his home country since he had been expelled from the country without a passport.

His only option was to seek asylum in Europe.

Although he was offered an opportunity to seek refuge in Belgium, he claimed that his official documents were lost when his luggage was stolen at a train station in Paris.

When the French police arrested him, they could not deport him to any country since he did not have any official documents. Therefore, he ended up staying at the Charles de Gaulle airport from August 1988.

Since then, his next 18 years would be spent at the airport. He was specifically staying at the airport's Terminal 1.

Eventually, his refuge papers were cleared in 1999, but he refused to sign them because he was nervous about leaving his unusual home.

He ended up spending several more years at the airport. He slept on a red plastic bench inside the airport and befriended the staff who nicknamed him "Lord Alfred."

Nasseri also became a popular face among the passengers passing through the airport.

He lived at the airport by choice until 2006 when he was hospitalized. The area he had set up was also destroyed.

From that point, he lived in a Paris shelter. However, weeks before his death, he reportedly started living at the airport once more.

Nasseri died of a heart attack at the airport's Terminal 2F on 12 November. The medical team was unable to revive him.

After years of staying at the airport, there were concerns that he could not adjust to normal life outside the airport.

His life was the inspiration behind the 2004 film, The Terminal. The movie starred Tom Hanks as the man forced to live at the airport because he could not get back to his home country.

However, Tom Hanks's character was from a fictional Eastern European country. He was spending his life at JFK airport in the United States.

The character was trapped in the airport and forced to live in the airport.