Scott Adams, the MAGA-aligned creator of the iconic Dilbert comic strip, has died at 68.
Adams’ ex-wife, Shelly Miles, announced his death during a Tuesday episode of a Real Coffee with Scott Adams livestream.
Miles said that the cartoonist died in Hospice care, seven months after he announced he was battling metastatic prostate cancer. He made his diagnosis just as former President Joe Biden announced he was also battling prostate cancer.
“I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has,” he said in a statement then. “I also have prostate cancer that has also spread to my bones, but I’ve had it longer than he’s had it—well, longer than he’s admitted having it. I expect to be checking out from this domain sometime this summer.”
Adams’ death comes a week after he revealed he had “essentially zero” chance of recovery. He revealed last month that he was paralyzed below the waist.
In November, he appealed for help from President Donald Trump to obtain the drug Pluvicto. The president responded on social media, “On it.”
Trump, 79, shared a tribute to Adams on Tuesday, but made it mostly about himself.
“Sadly, the Great Influencer, Scott Adams, has passed away,” Trump wrote. “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. My condolences go out to his family, and all of his many friends and listeners. He will be truly missed. God bless you, Scott!”
Adams was married to Miles from 2006 to 2014. The two remained friends after their divorce, with Miles moving a block away after they separated. He was a stepfather to two of Miles’ kids, including Justin, who died from a fentanyl overdose at 18.
The cartoonist quietly remarried in 2020, tying the knot with Kristina Basham, an influencer who was 31 years his junior. They split in 2022.
The exact circumstances of their divorce are not known, but Basham replied to an X page in March of that year, “Maybe you should ask Scott who cheated on who first?”
Basham, who now has 3.7 million followers on Instagram, has since had a son. She still has the surname Basham in her username, but now goes by “Kristina DeGennaro.” She did not immediately post a statement about her ex-husband’s death.
At its peak, Dilbert ran in 2,000 newspapers across 65 countries.
However, papers began dropping the comic strip after Adams, a longtime supporter of Trump, advised his white podcast listeners to “get the f--- away” from Black people. Adams told Fox News shortly after that the removals were the result of “wokeness.”
Adams defended his remark in an interview on NewsNation, claiming Black Americans were not upset by it.
“What I want your audience to know is that when I complained about Black people having a bad attitude about white people, that was me saying nothing about Black people,” he told Chris Cuomo. “It was saying, ‘I don’t want to be around people who have a bad feeling about me.’”
He continued, “It’s almost entirely white people that canceled me. It might be entirely because they’re the ones that own the publishing companies and the newspapers.”
The Windham, New York, native continued to praise Trump publicly in his final months.
Adams posted to X on Dec. 20, “Watching Trump turn top Democrats into cats chasing a laser pointer will go down in history as unmatched political skill. Someday, even Trump’s biggest critics will recognize this for what it is. You’re watching the most persuasive President of all time exhale a better game than his haters. He has them locked in the ‘narcissist’ frame, blinded to the persuasion frame. Enjoy The Show!”
