At a stunning 8ft 3in, Sultan Kosen is the tallest man in the world – but he has long refused to let his extraordinary height stop him.
The globetrotter has visited more than 120 countries, enjoys celebrity status and has worked as a farmer, circus performer and honorary ambassador in his native Turkey.
The 41-year-old owes his stunning height to a rare condition called pituitary gigantism, which causes his body to continually produce growth hormones.
He is one of only ten people to have ever reached a height of more than 8 feet and was awarded the Guinness World Record in 2009 as the tallest living man.
Since then, Kosen has appeared alongside the world's shortest woman, Jyoti Amge, who stands just 60cm tall and first met at the Egyptian pyramids six years ago before meeting again in California earlier this week.
While Kosen's size – that of a small giraffe – brought him fame and a jet-set lifestyle, he also had to deal with the downsides throughout his life.
Unfortunately, true love eluded Kosen, whose marriage to a Syrian woman who was two feet shorter than him ended in divorce due to their language barrier. His grief led him to embark on a world tour in search of Mrs. Right.
Kosen and Amge smiled happily as they posed for photos together yesterday
Kosen, 41, and Amge, 30, met back in 2018 for a photo shoot in Cairo, Egypt, where they posed in front of the Giza pyramids as part of a campaign to revitalize the country's struggling tourism industry
According to Guinness World Records, Kosen is the first person in more than a decade to stand over 8 feet tall and one of only 10 confirmed cases in history. He achieved the record title in 2009 (picture above)
Kosen's marriage to a Syrian woman who was 60 centimeters shorter than him ended in divorce due to a language barrier
Kosen began skyrocketing at the age of ten, became the tallest man in the world in 2009, and finally stopped growing in 2011.
He is one of five siblings, the rest of his family are all “normal” height.
As a teenager, Kosen signed up for his local basketball team, but was told he was too big to play. Since then, he has been cheering on his favorite sport from the sidelines.
His size also forced him to drop out of school and work part-time as a farmer.
While his size held him back as a youth, realizing his uniqueness helped him turn his life around.
On his first visit to the UK in September 2009, he said he hoped his newfound fame would change his life and help him find a wife.
“It's really difficult to find a girlfriend.” They're usually afraid of me. I hope that now that I'm famous I can meet a lot of girls. “My dream is to get married.”
He was able to fulfill this wish when he married the Syrian Merve Dibo in 2013.
He gushed at the time: “When I looked into her eyes I knew it was love.”
His bride, who was 20 when they tied the knot, said: “At first everyone around me told me not to marry him because of his height, but I fell in love with his heart, not his height. “His size doesn't bother me at all.”
The couple later divorced in 2021, citing a language barrier as the biggest problem in their relationship – he only spoke Turkish and his wife only spoke Arabic.
Kosen's search for love continued as he traveled around the world. His first stop was Moscow, where he had hoped to find a new wife with whom he could have a son and a daughter.
He then shifted his search to America and has been to 127 of the world's 195 countries with no sign that his world tour would end soon.
The tallest man in the world poses with the shortest man in the world in 2010
Chandra Bahadur Dangi of Nepal (left), the shortest adult ever confirmed by Guinness World Records, is pictured in 2014 with the world's tallest man, Sultan Kosen of Turkey
World's tallest man Sultan Kosen (right) poses with his fiancée Merve Dibo during their henna night, the ceremony held a day before their wedding on October 26, 2013
In addition to traveling in search of love, Kosen toured the Indian Ocean as part of a circus troupe and charged suitors $10 to take a photo with him.
“There must be thousands of acrobats and jugglers in the world, but when you talk about Sultan Kosen you are only talking about one in seven billion people on this planet,” Bruno Loyale, the circus' CEO and ringmaster, told local media.
He also had a cooking show in Romania that he is said to have participated in.
Always one to look at the positive, Kosen says his size offers a number of advantages.
As a young man, he said he was able to help his mother with chores such as changing a broken light bulb and hanging curtains.
One of the disadvantages of his size is that he cannot find clothes or shoes that fit.
He has a custom-made 10-foot bed and shoes that fit his feet – the second largest in the world.
He previously held the world record for the largest feet of a living human, with his left foot measuring 36.5 cm (1 ft 2 in) and his right foot 35.5 cm (1 ft 1.98 in).
However, this Guinness World Record was taken by the large-footed Jeison Orlando Rodríguez Hernández, whose feet measure 40.55 cm (1.33 feet) and 40.47 cm (1.32 feet).
Kosen also holds the record for the largest hands on a living human, with each measuring 28.5 cm (11.22 inches) from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger.
A stunning image shows Amge standing on Kosen's lap as he sits on a chair – but even though he reached up, the world's smallest woman only reached his collarbone
Last year, a would-be Greatest tried to claim the title for himself, but official measurements from the man and Kosen quickly revealed who the winner was.
Beanpole Sulemana, 29, attracted global attention last year after doctors estimated his height at 9ft 6in at a rural clinic in Ghana where staff did not have the proper equipment to measure him.
The 29-year-old was later measured and found to be just 7ft 4in tall.
A triumphant Kosen presented his tallest man award in response to a failed attempt to win the title he has now held for 15 years.
“I won’t lose my record to anyone,” he proudly told reporters. “I am determined.”