Whatever Happened to Valerie Solanas, the Woman Who Shot Andy Warhol?

American pop artist Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987) at the Roundhouse in London, which is showing his play 'Andy Warhol's Pork', London, UK, July 1971 — Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

What To Know

Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol in 1968 after believing he and others were trying to control or steal her work, leaving Warhol with lasting injuries.
Following the shooting, Solanas was arrested, declared mentally incompetent for a time, later pleaded guilty to reckless assault, and served time in prison and psychiatric institutions.

Andy Warhol was one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, and on June 3, 1968, his life nearly ended inside his New York studio, the Factory. He was shot by a woman named Valerie Solanas, a writer who had appeared in one of his films and became known forever for one violent act. Warhol survived, but the shooting left him with lasting physical damage and changed his life forever. So, what happened to Solanas after the attack, and why did she do it?

Before the shooting, she was trying to make a name for herself as a writer in New York. Her best-known work was SCUM Manifesto, which she self-published in 1967, and she also wrote a play called Up Your Ass. Solanas brought that play to Warhol, hoping he might produce it, but she became distraught after Warhol reportedly lost or misplaced the manuscript. Even though she appeared in Warhol’s 1967 film I, a Man, her fixation on the lost manuscript became tied to a broader belief that Warhol and publisher Maurice Girodias were trying to control or steal her work.

By the morning of June 3, 1968, Solanas was looking for people she believed had wronged her, including Girodias, Grove Press publisher Barney Rosset, and Warhol himself.

I SHOT ANDY WARHOL, Valerie Solanas (center), 1996

Orion/Everett Collection

Later that day, Solanas went to the Factory, where Warhol worked at 33 Union Square West. She waited for him, then entered the building with Warhol and his assistant Jed Johnson. While Warhol was on the phone, Solanas fired at him. Two shots missed, but one bullet struck Warhol and damaged his spleen, stomach, liver, esophagus, and lungs. She also shot art critic Mario Amaya, who survived. Warhol was taken to Columbus-Mother Cabrini Hospital in critical condition and underwent a five-hour operation.

A few hours after the shooting, Solanas turned herself in to the police near Times Square. According to accounts from the time, she said Warhol “had too much control” over her life. Solanas was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a firearm. During the legal proceedings, she was sent for psychiatric evaluation, declared mentally incompetent for a period, and sent to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. In January 1969, she was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia. Later that year, she was found fit to stand trial, represented herself, and pleaded guilty to reckless assault with intent to harm. She was sentenced to three years in prison, with one year already served.

SUPERSTAR: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ANDY WARHOL, Andy Warhol, 1990

Everett Collection

After her release in 1971, Solanas reportedly harassed Warhol and others by phone and continued demanding payment from Girodias. In December 1971, she was arrested again after threatening Grove Press figures Barney Rosset and Fred Jordan. She was then sent for more psychological examinations and institutionalized again. Solanas did continue writing, at least for a time.

In the mid-’70s, she became involved with Majority Report, a feminist publication, where she submitted work and later helped as an editor. She continued to promote SCUM Manifesto and talk about a new book that would explain why she shot Warhol, but that book was never published.

By the late ’70s, Solanas had mostly vanished from public view. Her mother filed a missing person report in 1979, and Solanas was found living in Greenwich Village. In the early ’80s, accounts place her in Phoenix, Arizona, where she was homeless for several years. By 1985, she had moved to San Francisco, where she spent her final years in and around the Tenderloin district. Warhol died in 1987 after gallbladder surgery, and when Warhol’s superstar, Ultra Violet, later told Solanas about his death, Solanas reportedly said, “I don’t feel anything.”

Solanas died of pneumonia on April 25, 1988, at the Bristol Hotel in San Francisco. She was 52. Her grave is at Saint Mary of Sorrows Catholic Church Cemetery in Fairfax Station, Virginia.