‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams reveals aggressive prostate cancer: 'My life expectancy is maybe this summer'

Article content

Scott Adams, the award-winning satirical cartoonist who created “Dilbert,” announced that he has an aggressive form of prostate cancer and that he does not have long to live.

Speaking to thousands on a YouTube live stream Monday, Adams, 67, expressed empathy for former president Joe Biden, who announced earlier this week that he has prostate cancer and that it has spread to his bones.

“I have the same cancer that Joe Biden has. I also have prostate cancer that has spread to my bones,” he said. “My life expectancy is maybe this summer,” he added, stating that he has “respect and compassion and sympathy” for the former president during his battle against a “terrible disease.”

“The disease is already intolerable. I can tell you that I don’t have good days,” Adams said during the live stream. “… Nope. Every day is a nightmare, and evening is even worse.”

He said he has been using a walker, and that he is “always in pain.” Previously, he advocated for the passage of the California End of Life Option Act, a law that allows physicians to prescribe an aid-in-dying drug to some terminally ill patients. Adams said he considers it a “civilized process” and an “option” for himself.

Adams – known for his hit cartoon about a socially awkward engineer navigating mundane office life – was working a corporate job at the Pacific Bell telephone company in the 1980s when he started waking up at 4 a.m. every day to pursue other career options. He eventually used that time to sketch and write “Dilbert,” leveraging a character he had already created to amuse his co-workers by drawing quippy cartoons onto office whiteboards. His colleagues faxed his office cartoons to branches in other towns, awakening Adams to his character’s potential for popularity.

In 1989, he first published “Dilbert” in a newspaper while still working at Pacific Bell. Its popularity rapidly grew in the early 1990s, earning him the National Cartoonists Society’s prestigious Reuben Award in 1997.

“Dilbert” went on to evolve into numerous books as well as a short-lived TV show. Adams has also written novels and nonfiction books unrelated to the comic series and launched a YouTube talk series called “Real Coffee with Scott Adams.” His political commentary on the show has at times garnered controversy, with hundreds of newspapers including The Washington Post dropping “Dilbert” from their pages in 2023 after he riffed on a viral poll that asked if it was “OK to be white” by saying that Black Americans are part of a “hate group” – a statement he has since said was meant to be hyperbole.

Adams has previously spoken out about his struggles with focal dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that has at times made drawing difficult. He also has shared his journey treating spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological disorder and form of focal dystonia that affects the voice and can significantly hinder speech.

In his live stream Monday, he said he had long withheld his cancer diagnosis but decided to come forward after hearing Biden’s announcement.

“Once you go public, you’re just the dying cancer guy, and I didn’t want you to have to think about it, and I didn’t want to have to think about it,” he said.

“Since it’s old news to me, I’ve just sort of processed it and so it’s just sort of is what it is,” he added. “… Everybody has to die, as far as I know.”