Scott Adams has died at the age of 68.
Adams was best known as the creator of Dilbert, a comic strip that poked fun at white-collar office life. He first published Dilbert in 1989, and it quickly became one of the most widely read comics of the 1990s, appearing in newspapers across the country.
In later years, Dilbert was pulled from wide circulation following a 2023 rant in which Adams made degrading comments about Black people.
News of Adams’ death was shared by his ex-wife and by PEOPLE, Shelly Miles, during the Jan. 13 episode of his podcast, Coffee with Scott Adams. During the episode, Miles read a “final message” written by Adams, which she said he wanted shared with listeners.
“If you are reading this, things did not go well for me,” Miles said. “I have a few things to say before I go. My body failed before my brain. I am of sound mind as I write this January 1, 2026.”
She continued: “With your permission, I’d like to explain my life. For the first part of my life, I was focused on making myself a worthy husband and parent, as I waited to find meaning. That worked, but marriages don’t always last forever, and mine eventually ended in a highly amicable way. I’m grateful for those years and for the people I came to call my family.”
“Once the marriage unwound, I needed a new focus, a new meaning, and so I donated myself to the world, literally speaking the words out loud in my other wife’s silent home. From that point on, I looked for ways I could add the most to people’s life, one way or another. That marked the start of my evolution from Dilbert cartoonist to an author of what I hoped would be useful books.”
“I had an amazing life,” Miles read. “I gave it everything I had. If I got any benefits from my work, I’m asking that you pay it forward, as best as you can. That’s the legacy I want. Be useful and please know I loved you all to the very end.”
Scott Adams revealed in May 2025 that he had prostate cancer, saying it had spread to his bones. He described his condition as severe, saying, “Every day is a nightmare, and evening is even worse.” By January 2026, Adams said his chances of recovery were “essentially zero,” adding that he had lost feeling in his legs and was experiencing heart failure.
Adams was born in Windham, New York, in 1957. In a 1996 interview with People, he said his mother encouraged him to believe he could do anything. While others discouraged him from pursuing cartooning, Adams admired Charles Schulz and hoped to follow a similar path. After repeated rejections, he instead studied economics, worked as a bank teller, earned an MBA from Berkeley, and was hired by Pacific Bell.
The idea for Dilbert grew out of doodles Adams made at work, inspired by his coworkers. United Media picked up the strip in 1989. Dilbert took off in the 1990s after Adams added his email address to the strip and began sharing it online, making him the first nationally syndicated cartoonist to do so. Office workers widely displayed the comic in their cubicles, which People described as a form of “passive resistance.” By the mid-1990s, Dilbert appeared in more than 1,000 newspapers in 32 countries and expanded into bestselling books and merchandise. Adams left his corporate job in 1995 to focus on the strip full time.
In later years, Adams published non-Dilbert books, including God’s Debris and The Religion War. He was married to Shelly Miles from 2006 to 2014 and credited her with helping him recover from spasmodic dysphonia, a vocal disorder that once left him nearly mute. Adams later married Kristina Basham in 2020; they announced their divorce in 2022.
