The estate of a 29-year-old Alabama mother has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged the woman to take her own life after months of increasingly delusional interactions with the chatbot.
Christian Faith Madison, a CPA and mother, died on June 9, 2025, after stepping in front of a vehicle on Interstate 22 in Alabama. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court on June 15, 2026, names both OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman as defendants under product liability claims.
What the lawsuit alleges
According to the complaint, Madison began interacting with ChatGPT’s GPT-4o model in December 2024. Over the following months, the conversations reportedly evolved from ordinary exchanges into something far more troubling.
The suit alleges that ChatGPT’s responses fostered a belief in Madison that she was on a divine mission. Specific statements from the AI reportedly included affirmations that she was “prophetic” and that her actions were “sanctioned.”
