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Kennedy granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg shares terminal cancer diagnosis
Tatiana Schlossberg, the 35-year-old granddaughter of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, revealed in a New Yorker essay published Saturday that she has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and given less than a year to live. The announcement coincided with the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather's assassination.
A mother's fight and a family's legacy
Schlossberg, a climate journalist and mother of two, detailed her battle with acute myeloid leukemia, which she was diagnosed with shortly after giving birth in May 2024. Despite a previously active lifestyle-including running, skiing, and even swimming in New York's Hudson River to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society-her condition has worsened despite treatment.
In her essay, titled A Battle With My Blood, Schlossberg wrote that doctors told her during a recent clinical trial that she may have less than a year left. "My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn't remember me," she shared. Her children, a son born in 2022 and a daughter in 2024, remain central to her concerns.
Family tragedy and political dismay
Schlossberg's diagnosis comes amid a family history marked by loss. Her uncle, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in a plane crash at 38, and her grandmother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, succumbed to cancer when Schlossberg was a toddler. She expressed deep sorrow over the pain her death would inflict on her mother, Caroline Kennedy-a former U.S. ambassador to Australia and Japan-writing, "I have tried to be good, to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life."
Her essay also critiques the appointment of her second cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as U.S. health secretary under President Donald Trump. "I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, in the face of logic and common sense, was confirmed for the position, despite never having worked in medicine, public health, or the government," she wrote. "Suddenly, the healthcare system on which I relied felt strained, shaky."
Family support and a call to action
Schlossberg's brother, Jack Schlossberg, shared her essay online Saturday with the caption: "Life is short-let it rip." The Kennedy family, long intertwined with U.S. politics and public life, continues to navigate both personal and political challenges, with Jack recently announcing his own run for Congress in New York.
"For my whole life, I have tried to be good... Now I have added a new tragedy to our family's life, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."
Tatiana Schlossberg, The New Yorker
