Scott Adams #

Introduction #

Scott Adams (born June 8, 1957) was the creator of “Dilbert,” one of the most successful and widely syndicated comic strips of its era, running in newspapers for more than three decades. In February 2023, that empire collapsed: after Adams used his online video program “Real Coffee with Scott Adams” to deliver remarks that news outlets described as a racist rant, a number of newspapers across the country announced they would no longer carry the strip. Within days its distributor, Andrews McMeel Syndication, said it was severing all ties with the cartoonist — an abrupt end to the run of a strip he had created in 1989.

Background Information #

Adams was born in Windham, New York, earned a bachelor’s degree from Hartwick College and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and worked at Pacific Bell from 1986 until June 30, 1995, where the personalities he encountered inspired many of his Dilbert characters. He launched Dilbert with United Media in 1989 while still employed at Pacific Bell, drawing his cartoons in the early morning hours; his first payment was a monthly royalty check of $368.62. The strip was syndicated in 100 newspapers by 1991 and 400 by 1994, and Adams became a full-time cartoonist as it reached 800 papers.

By 2000, Dilbert was running in 2,000 newspapers in 57 countries and 19 languages, and it spawned books and an animated television series that premiered on UPN in January 1999, ran for two seasons and won a Primetime Emmy Award. His business book “The Dilbert Principle” came out in 1996, and he won the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award in 1997. In the mid-2010s, Adams emerged as an independent commentator on politics and events, building a daily video show, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” that grew into a YouTube channel with more than 200,000 subscribers.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

On a February 22, 2023, livestream of “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” Adams, then 65, reacted to a poll that asked respondents whether they agreed with the statements “It’s OK to be white” — a phrase described by the Anti-Defamation League as associated with the white supremacist movement — and “Black people can be racist, too.” The poll found that 26% of Black respondents said “no” to the first question and 21% said they weren’t sure, which Adams concluded meant nearly half had a negative response.

Upset that nearly half did not agree, Adams described Black people as a “hate group” and said, “the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people.” “If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people – according to this poll, not to me – that’s a hate group … and I don’t want anything to do with them,” he said, adding, “There is no fixing this … you just have to escape,” which he said was why he had moved to a neighborhood with “a very low Black population.” He went on to say he would back off from being helpful to Black America “because it doesn’t seem like it pays off” — “The only outcome is I get called a racist … it makes no sense to help Black Americans if you’re White. It’s over.”

Public Reaction and Consequences #

Newspapers responded within days. MLive Media Group in Michigan announced it would not “spend our money supporting purveyors” of racism and would drop the strip from its eight newspapers and website “as soon as practically possible,” writing that “the values we stand for as a company, as community members and as an employer of a diverse work force demand that we take immediate and unambiguous action against that kind of bias and stereotype.” Cleveland’s Plain Dealer said its parent company, Advance Publications, was looking to drop Dilbert from its papers in Oregon, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Dilbert was also dropped by The New York Times in its international print edition, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and USA Today-affiliated papers. On February 27, 2023, Andrews McMeel Syndication announced it was ending its relationship with Adams over his racist remarks, and his book publisher Portfolio dropped a non-Dilbert book scheduled for release that September. NPR noted this was not the first time Adams had made controversial remarks, prompting questions about why outlets acted only now. Doubling down, Adams responded on Twitter to a user who said they found his comments heartbreaking: “You should hear it in context. You would agree.”

Current Status #

Adams defended his remarks as hyperbole that was taken out of context in media reports, disavowed racism, and asserted that nobody would disagree with his main points: do not discriminate and avoid things that look like they put one at risk. On March 13, 2023, he relaunched the strip as “Dilbert Reborn” on the subscription website Locals, minus the earlier Dilbert comics, and continued his daily show and social media activity. In November 2025 he announced he would no longer draw Dilbert — his right hand had focal dystonia and his left hand was semi-paralyzed — though he said he would continue writing the strip, with his art director taking over as artist.

Adams was diagnosed with stage IV prostate cancer in May 2025 and retired from drawing that year. He died under hospice care at his home in Pleasanton, California, on January 13, 2026, at the age of 68.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The February 2023 fallout ended the strip’s mainstream newspaper life after a run of more than three decades that at its height reached 2,000 newspapers in 57 countries and 19 languages. It was not the franchise’s first setback — 77 newspapers had dropped the comic the previous year — but losing its distributor and major papers, plus his forthcoming book, marked a decisive break. Adams remained defiant, insisting his comments had been taken out of context before rebuilding Dilbert in reduced form on a subscription platform while continuing the political commentary that had become a central part of his public life. For a man who had long warned that newspapers would close forever and take his Dilbert income with them, the cancellation proved him right in the most personal way possible: the strip that made his name would survive only in the direct-to-fans form he had predicted.