Scott Adams dead: ‘Dilbert’ cartoonist and author was 68

Scott Adams, whose comic strip “Dilbert” defined a particular workplace culture for more than 30 years before it was canceled due to perceived racist remarks, has died following a battle with metastatic prostate cancer. He was 68 years old.

The announcement came Tuesday via Adams’ YouTube channel, which he streamed daily until Monday morning.

The cartoonist, whose extremely dry humor and heterodox political beliefs were on public display in recent years on his daily livestream “Coffee With Scott Adams,” spoke directly to his audience almost until his death and received help from friends in his final days. .

Adams announced his Stage 4 cancer diagnosis in May 2025, shortly after former President Biden’s diagnosis of metastatic prostate cancer was made public.

“Some of you have already guessed, so this won’t surprise you at all, but I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” he said during his livestream on May 19, 2025. “I, too, have prostate cancer, which has spread to my bones, but I’ve had it longer than he has. I mean, longer than he’s willing to admit.”

He stated that he and the former commander in chief had the “bad form” of prostate cancer.

“There’s something you should know about prostate cancer,” he said. “If it’s localized and hasn’t left your prostate, it’s 100% treatable. But if it leaves your prostate and spreads to other parts of your body… it’s 100% untreatable.”

Adams had been using a walker for months, starting last May, and was struggling with terrible pain as the cancer had spread to his bones.

Considering all this, he said, “My life expectancy might be this summer. I hope to leave this area sometime this summer.” But Adams exceeded that prediction by broadcasting live from his hospital bed during his stay for radiation treatment before Christmas, and then again from his bed at home afterward.

Scott Raymond Adams was born on June 8, 1957, in Windham, New York, to a postal clerk father and a real estate agent mother. He started drawing cartoons when he was 6 years old. Adams was valedictorian at Windham-Ashland-Jewett Central School, earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y., and then moved to California, where he earned a master’s degree in business administration at UC Berkeley.

He went on to work for years at Crocker National Bank and Pacific Bell, doing the kind of general corporate office work that his comics would use as fodder. While at PacBell, he woke up before dawn every day to try to find an alternative career. Cartoonism won.

Released in 1989, “Dilbert” rose from publication in a handful of newspapers to its peak of being featured in more than 2,000 outlets in 57 countries and 19 languages. In 1997, Adams received the National Cartoonists Guild’s Reuben Award, the industry’s highest honor. Their page-a-day “Dilbert” calendars have been bestsellers for years, with more than 20 million calendars and printed “Dilbert” books available.

His books included numerous comic book compilations as well as business books such as “Winning Big” and “How to Lose Almost Every Time and Still Win Big.”

Read the description on its YouTube page: “If you enjoy learning how to be more effective in life while keeping up with interesting news, this is the channel for you.”

In February 2023, comments made by Adams on his podcast were interpreted as racist and led to serious consequences for his career.

During a midweek live broadcastAdams had announced the results of a survey that asked whether people agreed or disagreed with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.” Among Black respondents, 26% disagreed and 21% said they were unsure; overall, 47% thought it was inappropriate to be white.

(The seemingly innocuous phrase “It’s okay to be white” was chosen for an online trolling campaign in 2017 aimed at angering liberals and the media. Anti-Defamation League He said in a statement at that time. The phrase also has a history of use among white supremacists.)

“If almost half the black people don’t get along with white people… that’s a hate group. And I don’t want anything to do with them,” Adams said in his usual deadpan delivery. “And the way things are going, the best advice I can give to white people is to get the hell out of Black people. Just walk away. Wherever you need to go, walk away. Because there’s nothing to fix this. This can’t be fixed.”

Still deadpanned, he continued, “So, as a white citizen of America, there’s no point in trying to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no rational impulse anymore. And so I’m going to give up on helping Black America, because there doesn’t seem to be any reward for it. Like, I’ve been doing this my whole life and the only result will be me being called a racist.”

Within days, amid backlash over Adams’ alleged racism, “Dilbert” was removed by several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times. His union, which later supplied “Dilbert” to all the outlets that published the comic, removed him from being a customer altogether. And Penguin Random House slammed the door. The publication of the book was canceled He dropped “Reframe Your Brain,” due out that fall, and his back catalog from his offerings.

Adams discussed his own cancellation after the incident, saying on his livestream a few days later that he used hyperbole “meaning exaggeration” to make a point. He said the stories quoting his comments used a trick: “The trick is to use my quote and ignore the context, which I helpfully added later.”

But he said no one would disagree with his two main ideas: “treating all individuals as individuals, not discriminating” and “avoiding anything that statistically seems like a bad idea for you personally.” He also rejected racists.

In August 2023, Adams concluded his own book, “Reframe Your Brain,” with a dedication that read, “For Simultaneous Sippers (Thank you for saving me).”

Even after his excommunication from the mainstream, Adams’ weekday morning livestreams regularly garnered tens of thousands of views on YouTube.

Adams married his girlfriend, mother of two Shelly Miles, in 2006, and the marriage lasted eight years. The two remained friends following their divorce in 2014, and in 2018, Adams learned that her stepson Justin, whom she said she “raised from the age of 2,” had died of an overdose at age 18 after struggling with addiction for years. Adams couldn’t hold back her tears during her live broadcast as she explained that Justin’s decision-making ability was impaired due to a head injury he suffered in a bicycle accident when he was 14 years old.