An Iranian man nicknamed the “dirtiest man in the world” for not taking a shower for decades has died at the age of 94, state media reported on Tuesday.
Amou Haji, who did not wash for more than half a century and was single, died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars, IRNA news agency reported.
Haji had avoided showering over fears of “getting sick”, the agency quoted a local official as saying.
But “for the first time a few months ago, villagers had taken him to a bathroom to wash,” IRNA reported.
A short documentary film titled The Strange Life of Amou Haji was made about his life in 2013, according to Iranian media outlets.
Haji, covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, was reported by local media not to have bathed with water or soap in more than 60 years. Villagers said he had experienced “emotional setbacks in his youth” that led him to refuse to wash.
In 2014, the Tehran Times reported that Haji would eat roadkill, smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, and believed that cleanliness would make him ill. Photos showed him smoking multiple cigarettes at once.
But a few months ago, villagers had persuaded him to wash for the first time, Irna reported.
After Haji’s death, the unofficial record could go to an Indian man who also had not bathed for much of his life.
