'Dilbert' creator Scott Adams dies of cancer

Author and cartoonist Scott Adams died of metastatic prostate cancer, according to his former wife Shelly Miles on Tuesday. The creator of the comic strip “Dilbert,” was 68.

Shelly Miles made the announcement of his death in a livestream on X.  She was reading a statement Adams had prepared for her on January 1, 2026. 

“I had an amazing life,” the statement read. “I gave it everything I had.”

Scott Adams died months after issuing a plea for President Trump to “help save his life” after the cartoonist said his health care provider, Kaiser Permanente, “dropped the ball” in scheduling treatment of a newly FDA-approved drug for the disease.

“He offered to help me if I needed it,” Adams wrote on X. “I need it.”

“I am declining fast,” the cartoonist continued. “I will ask President Trump if he can get Kaiser of Northern California to respond and schedule it … That will give me a fighting chance to stick around on this planet a little bit longer.”

“On it!” Trump replied in a post on Truth Social .

Adams, a Trump supporter, said he tried to avoid public out of fear he’d become “just the dying cancer guy.” But he decided to speak after Biden revealed his own diagnosis.

“I’d like to extend my respect and compassion for the ex-president and his family because they’re going through an especially tough time,” he said. “It’s a terrible disease.”

“Dilbert” was first published in 1989, and the syndicated comic strip ran for decades in thousands of newspapers across the country.

Reacting to his death, Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Sadly, the Great Influencer, Scott Adams, has passed away. He was a fantastic guy, who liked and respected me when it wasn’t fashionable to do so. He bravely fought a long battle against a terrible disease."

According to The Guardian, in February 2023, most US newspapers dropped Dilbert after Adams described Black people as a “hate group” during a YouTube livestream and urged white people to “get the hell away” from Black people. 

“Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there's no fixing this. This can't be fixed."