Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former US president John F. Kennedy, has died aged 35 after a battle with blood cancer, only six weeks after she publicly shared her diagnosis. The tragic news was confirmed on Tuesday through the JFK Library Foundation’s social media pages, where her devastated family announced her passing and paid tribute to her life.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the post reads, signed by “George, Edwin and Josephine Moran, Ed, Caroline, Jack, Rose and Rory.” Schlossberg, who was born in New York, shared in November that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024.
Gone Too Soon
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Writing candidly in The New Yorker, the environmental journalist said the news came as a complete shock, as Schlossberg had felt perfectly healthy and described herself as “one of the healthiest people I knew.” The illness was diagnosed only through routine blood tests carried out after she gave birth to her second child, as she had experienced no warning signs or symptoms.
Schlossberg was the daughter of Caroline Kennedy — the only child of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy — and renowned designer Edwin Schlossberg.
Schlossberg leaves behind her husband, physician George Moran, and their two young children: Edwin, aged three, and Josephine, aged one.
In her essay for The New Yorker, Schlossberg recalled how surreal the diagnosis felt, saying she “couldn’t believe” the doctors were speaking about her when they explained she would need chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.
“I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew,” she wrote.
Her Explanation Before Death
Schlossberg shared that throughout months of exhausting and difficult medical treatment, she was surrounded by the unwavering support of her parents and her siblings, Rose and Jack. “[My family has] held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered, trying not to show their pain and sadness in order to protect me from it. This has been a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day,” she wrote.
In the essay, she also reflected on the so-called “Kennedy curse,” explaining that she didn’t want to bring “another tragedy” into her mother Caroline’s life.
Caroline Kennedy was just five years old when her father was assassinated, and later endured the loss of her only surviving sibling, John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash.
“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” Schlossberg wrote.
“Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
