Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of JFK, reveals terminal cancer diagnosis

Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of late President John F. Kennedy, is battling a rare form of leukemia and may have less than a year to live.

In an article published in New York on Saturday, the 35-year-old environmental journalist wrote that her illness was discovered in May 2024 after she gave birth to her daughter. She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation known as inversion 3 and underwent several treatments, including chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant.

Schlossberg is the daughter of former US ambassador Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former president and Edwin Schlossberg. They live in New York.

In her essay, Schlossberg acknowledged that her terminal illness adds to the series of tragedies that have befallen the famous political family. Her grandfather was killed in Dallas in 1963. Nearly five years later, his brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was shot dead in Los Angeles after giving a victory speech at the Ambassador’s Hotel after winning the California presidential primary. Her uncle, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1999 when his small plane crashed.

“For all my life, I have tried to be good, a good student, a good sister and a good daughter, and to take care of my mother and never upset or offend her,” Schlossberg wrote.

“Now I’ve added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

She wrote that her prognosis was shocking. She had just turned 34, didn’t feel sick and was physically active, including swimming a mile the day before giving birth to her second child at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

After giving birth, her doctor became concerned about her white blood cell count.

At first, medical experts thought that the test result might be related to her pregnancy. However, doctors soon concluded that he had myeloid leukemia, a condition mostly seen in elderly patients. She spent several weeks in the hospital.

“Every doctor I saw asked me if I had spent too much time at Ground Zero, given how common blood cancers are among first responders,” Schlossberg wrote. “I was in New York on 9/11, in sixth grade, but I didn’t visit the site until years later.”

She has endured various treatments. Her older sister, Rose, was one of her bone marrow donors.

In the article, Schlossberg referred to the Kennedy family’s tensions over controversial positions taken by her mother’s cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Schlossberg wrote that while she was in the hospital in mid-2024, Kennedy suspended her long-shot campaign for president to throw her weight behind then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Trump named Kennedy to his cabinet as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In one of his first steps, Trump called for a cut in state funding to Columbia University, which employs her husband, George Moran.

“Doctors and scientists at Columbia, including George, did not know if they would be able to continue their research, or even have jobs,” she wrote. “Suddenly, the health care system that I depended on felt the pressure, the shock.”

On Saturday, her brother Jack Schlossberg, who recently announced his bid for Congress in a New York district, shared a link on Instagram to her New Yorker article, “Fighting My Blood.”

“Life is short – let it be short,” he added.