Andy Warhol was shot on June 3, 1968, by writer and radical feminist Valerie Solanas, who believed he had stolen, suppressed, or sabotaged her work and was part of a conspiracy against her. Her actions were also strongly shaped by serious mental health problems and her extreme, ideologically charged hostility toward men, which she expressed in her “SCUM Manifesto.”

Key reason he was shot

  • Valerie Solanas had given Warhol a script (and other work) and became convinced he had lost it, was exploiting her, or blocking her career, which fueled deep resentment toward him.
  • Over time, this resentment mixed with paranoia and her radical views, leading her to see Warhol as a powerful figure sabotaging her life and a target whose shooting would make both her and her work famous.

What happened during the shooting

  • On June 3, 1968, Solanas went to Warhol’s studio, the Factory, with a .32-caliber pistol, waited, and then opened fire at close range while he was on the phone.
  • She missed with the first shots, then hit Warhol once; the bullet tore through multiple organs (including spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus, and lungs), leaving him in critical condition and requiring hours of surgery to survive.

Solanas’s motives in more detail

  • Solanas was a marginal writer and activist whose “SCUM Manifesto” called for violent overthrow of male-dominated society, and she sometimes framed the shooting as a political act against a powerful man in the art world.
  • At the same time, accounts describe her as severely mentally ill and paranoid, believing Warhol was part of a plot to control her housing, money, and manuscripts, so the shooting was both personal retaliation and an attempt at notoriety.

Aftermath for Warhol

  • Warhol survived but never fully recovered physically; he lived with chronic pain, scars, and fear, and people close to him said the shooting permanently changed his personality and how he ran the Factory.
  • Some biographers and doctors have later argued that the damage from the shooting and the strain on his already fragile health may have contributed to the complications that led to his death in 1987.

Legal outcome for Solanas

  • Solanas turned herself in to police shortly after the shooting, saying simply, “I shot Andy Warhol,” and was arrested.
  • She was diagnosed with mental illness, spent time in prison and psychiatric institutions, and was later released, living a largely obscure and troubled life until her death in 1988.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.