Did Warhol really predict that "in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes"?

March 5, 2004 5:03 PM

Looking for the truth of a famous (mis)quote: Did Warhol really predict that "in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" as thousands of hack journalists claim? Or did he, noticing that the unfamous crave fame while the famous claim to hate it, simply say "everyone should be famous for fifteen minutes" so as to spread it around?
posted by timeistight to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Neither. His exact words were "In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes". And I don't know what prompted him to say it. My sister made a needlepoint pillow using the quotation, which she lifted directly from a copy of Interview Magazine, where I believe it was first published.
posted by iconomy at 5:36 PM on March 5, 2004

"It's the place where my prediction from the sixties finally came true: "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." I'm bored with that line. I never use it anymore. My new line is, "In fifteen minutes everybody will be famous."
--Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987), Andy Warhol's Exposures (1979) "Studio 54"
posted by mmoncur at 3:29 AM on March 6, 2004