We all remember Eric Adams, the former mayor of New York who went to war with the rats (“Everyone that knows me knows one thing: I hate rats”), approved NYPD “robo-cops” and “digidogs”, and had questionable exchanges with Turkey. He’s also been quoted with saying some truly strange things, such as “All my haters become my waiters when I sit down at the table of success,” and “I wake up in the morning sometimes and look at myself and give myself the finger.” The accusations on his dealings with Turkey weakened his reputation significantly, which led to his decision to run as an Independent rather than a Democrat during the 2025 mayoral elections, allowing Zohran Mamdani to win the Democratic primary and later win the general election. And on January 1, 2026, Mamdani officially became mayor, ending Adams’s term which included controversies such as the aforementioned Turkey scandals and sexual harassment allegations. Although he’s not in office anymore, he has made headlines recently because of one of the most bizarre things he has ever done: obtain Albanian citizenship.

Let’s turn our attention back to the elections last year. Adams had announced that he would be running as an independent early on, as it was clear that it was extremely unlikely that he would be able to secure the Democratic ticket for 2025 after the scandals that plagued his administration. Nevertheless, even as an Independent, he had virtually no chance of winning. But how did he end up becoming mayor in the first place? Well, as we saw in his term as mayor of New York, Adams was a staunch ally of the NYPD, and was known for introducing anti-crime policies such as increasing the number of police in the New York City Subway, and introducing “Robocop” and “Digidog,” two robots designed to help the NYPD fight crime in busy areas like Times Square. In the 2021 election, he had appealed to NYPD members by promising a number of new policies that would benefit them. These things ended up being a large part of his primary victory that year, as more progressive Democratic candidates failed to stand out among competitors. Adams also successfully got the support of multiple unions in 2021, allowing him to pick up large groups of voters.

Although Adams was nowhere near as successful in the most recent election, he still tried to get voters’ support. He compared New York to many places across the world, such as Istanbul, Kyiv, and Mexico City. Also, Albania: He called New York the “Albania of America.” This was strange; while New York has the largest population of Albanian-Americans in the country, they still only account for a small number of voters in the election. So maybe he made this comparison out of a genuine love for Albania? And that’s how we end up at Adams receiving Albanian citizenship. He was awarded citizenship by Albanian President Bajram Begaj in April 2026 (at Adams’s request). And his decision to become an Albanian citizen might actually be just because he loves Albania, or could possibly be motivated by business interests. During his term as mayor, especially in his final year, he did many things that signal a love for the Balkan country, such as his Albanian flag-raising ceremonies. He also described Albania as a “beautiful country” and expressed desire to go to Albania during his term. And now that he is not the mayor anymore, he could even live in Albania with his citizenship.

This news, while certainly bizarre, is certainly in character with Adams’s past actions. First, as I described earlier, his possible love for Albania. But attaining Albanian citizenship isn’t even the strangest thing he’s ever done. In 2018, while he was Brooklyn borough president, he said he would carry a gun “every time” he went into a place of worship. And of course, the war on rats to improve sanitation in the city. The rat war ended up being one of his more successful initiatives, as his new sanitation policies have made sanitation much more organized and made garbage much harder for rats to get into. Even though he isn’t the mayor anymore, Eric Adams has still proven to be a strange person. There is some speculation that he is looking to become the mayor of the capital of Albania, which would certainly be an interesting move for him. But for now, we can still enjoy his strange actions in New York.