The granddaughter of former US President John F. Kennedy Jr. has announced her diagnosis of an aggressive form of cancer. The 35-year-old woman said she had less than a year to live.
Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of former US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, shared the news in an essay published in The New Yorker on Saturday – the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather's assassination.
The mother-of-two climate journalist has been an outspoken opponent of her relative Robert Kennedy Jr.'s position as US health secretary under President Donald Trump.
In her essay, Schlossberg describes her dismay at seeing her second cousin approved for the position while she was battling her illness.
According to Schlossberg's essay entitled “Battle with My Blood,” she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia after giving birth in May 2024.
She describes her previously healthy lifestyle, which included running, skiing and even once swimming in the Hudson River in New York City, “which is scary, to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.”
Despite treatment, including a bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy, she said doctors told her the outcome was not good.
“During my last clinical trial, my doctor told me he might be able to keep me alive for a year,” she writes.
“My first thought was that my children, whose faces constantly live on the inside of my eyelids, would not remember me.” Schlossberg's son was born in 2022, and her daughter in 2024.
Schlossberg, whose uncle John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash at age 38 and whose grandmother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died of cancer when Schlossberg was a child, also describes the pain she fears her death will cause her mother, who previously served as U.S. ambassador to Australia and Japan.
“All my life I have tried to be good, to be a good student, a good sister and a good daughter, to protect my mother and never upset her or make her angry. Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to the life of our family, and there is nothing I can do to stop it,” she writes.
She also describes her disappointment in seeing her second cousin, known as RFK Jr., whose father Robert Kennedy was also assassinated while running for president, become Trump's health secretary.
“I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, despite logic and common sense, was confirmed for this position despite never having worked in medicine, public health or government,” she writes.
“Suddenly the health care system I relied on felt strained and shaky.”
Earlier this month, her brother Jack Schlossberg announced he plans to run for Congress in New York.
On Saturday, he shared her essay online with the caption: “Life is short – let it rip.”
The Kennedy family's involvement in US politics over several generations, as well as the personal tragedies that often affected its members, has earned it a distinguished reputation in American life.
