The Wild True Story Of The Attempted Murder Of Andy Warhol

Valerie Solanas moved to New York City in 1962 and from 1965 to 1967 became obsessed with revising her "SCUM Manifesto," per Inside Edition Digital. It was around this time that she met Andy Warhol and showed him a play she wrote called "Up Your A**," which he dismissed in part because it was too explicit, even for him. Still, he offered her bit parts in movies and even offered her a job as a typist at his iconic art studio, office, and event space, The Factory. She refused, and reportedly developed a theory that Warhol was setting out to steal her work.

On June 3, 1968, Solanas headed to 333 Union Square West in New York City to meet Warhol outside of his office, per The New York Times. Once Warhol arrived, he and Solanas rode up in the elevator together to the sixth floor, where a group of people were waiting in Warhol's office. "All of a sudden she pulls out a gun and starts shooting for no real reason," Blake Gopnik, who wrote the biography "Warhol," told Inside Edition Digital.

Solanas began firing a .32-caliber pistol and struck Warhol. The artist collapsed, banging his head on a nearby desk. Solanas went up to him and shot the gun into his side at close range. The bullet pierced several of Warhol's major organs. Solanas then ran from the office, riding the elevator back down to the New York streets.