“Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams is dead at 68.
The satirist from Windham, New York, died following a long battle with prostate cancer, according to his ex-wife, Shelly Miles. She announced the news on Tuesday with a statement Adams prepared prior to his death during a live stream on his YouTube channel, Coffee with Scott Adams.
“I had an amazing life,” the statement said in part. “I gave it everything I had.”
The comic artist frequently gave fans updates about his condition, which had spread to his bones, after announcing in May that he expected “to be checkin’ out from this domain sometime this summer.”
Adams outlived that prognosis with support from admirers including members of the Trump Administration, whom he reached out to in November hoping for expedited treatment options.
“Scott, how do I reach you?” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded almost immediately. “The President wants to help.”
But Adams told fans during a Monday video conference posted to X, “I’m pretty close to my end date.”
His ex-wife Shelly Adams told TMZ on Monday that Adams was in hospice care and likely had days to live.
The right-wing illustrator announced in May that he was being treated for prostate cancer, which had metastasized to his bones. He started 2026 with a New Year’s Day post conceding he’d been told there’s almost no chance he’d recover.
“It’s all bad news,” Adams lamented.
Adams credited “Peanuts” creator Charles Schultz as a significant influence when he was a child. He was the middle child of three born to a postal clerk and a real estate agent. Adams’ biography also credits him with having been his high school valedictorian. He went no to study economics at Hartwick College in Oneonta.
“My problem looking back was that I had absolutely no role model or mentor in my small town to ask about how to go about achieving the success I wanted,” he said in a 2014 interview published by the San Francisco Gate.
He later studied at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley.
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Adams became one of the most celebrated comic strip artists in the country with his “Dilbert” cartoons, which explored the ups, downs and absurdities of working in an office. The strip launched in 1989, but was pulled from many publications in March 2023 after the artist referred to Black people as a “hate group” he tried to avoid.
“I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore,” Adams told supporters in an online video. “So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”
He later claimed he was trying to be provoke further conversation about the topic, but the damage was done. Hundreds of media outlets immediately cut ties with him.
Adams explained his fall from mainstream acceptance on Dilbert.com where he sporting described himself as a cartoonist.
“If you believe the news, it was because I am a big ol’ racist,” he wrote
Adams asked fans last week to share with his biographer how his work may have been inspirational to others. One taker was Fox News pundit Greg Gutfeld who credited Adams for changing his life.
“There’s no one like you out there, but you’ve helped mentor many who now try,” Gutfeld posted on X.
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