The Kennedy family has endured more tragedy than any American dynasty should have to bear.
From assassinations to plane crashes, drug overdoses to fatal accidents, death has stalked America's most famous political family for generations.
And the Kennedy curse just claimed another victim in one heartbreaking tragedy.
JFK's Granddaughter Drops Bombshell Terminal Diagnosis
Caroline Kennedy's 35-year-old daughter announced in a New Yorker essay that she's battling acute myeloid leukemia with less than a year to live.¹
Doctors discovered the rare and aggressive blood cancer just hours after Schlossberg gave birth to her second child in May 2024.
Her white blood cell count measured 131,000 cells per microliter when normal range sits between 4,000 and 11,000.²
"I did not — could not — believe that they were talking about me," Schlossberg wrote. "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."³
https://twitter.com/ABCWorldNews/status/1992981968967872716?s=20
The environmental journalist detailed 18 brutal months of treatment including two bone marrow transplants, multiple rounds of chemotherapy, and two clinical trials.
None of it worked.
The cancer kept coming back, and her doctor finally delivered the devastating news: he could keep her alive for "a year, maybe."⁴
Schlossberg's husband George Moran is a physician who "slept on the floor of the hospital" and "did everything for me that he possibly could."⁵
But even his medical expertise couldn't stop this disease.
Their 3-year-old son might remember his mother. Their 1-year-old daughter likely won't.
"I didn't ever really get to take care of my daughter — I couldn't change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants," Schlossberg explained. "I don't know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother."⁶
The Timing Couldn't Be More Haunting
Schlossberg published her essay on November 22, 2025.
Exactly 62 years to the day after her grandfather President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
The coincidence sends chills down your spine when you realize how relentlessly tragedy has hunted this family.
Joseph Kennedy Jr. died when his explosives-laden bomber exploded over England in 1944.
Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy perished in a plane crash in France in 1948.
President Kennedy fell to an assassin's bullet in 1963. His infant son Patrick died the same year.
Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down in 1968 while running for President.
Ted Kennedy's aide Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in his car at Chappaquiddick in 1969.
David Kennedy overdosed in a Palm Beach hotel in 1984.
Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident in 1997.
John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn, and her sister Lauren died when JFK Jr.'s plane crashed into the Atlantic in 1999.
Kara Kennedy suffered a fatal heart attack in 2011.
Mary Richardson Kennedy, wife of RFK Jr., died by suicide in 2012.
Saoirse Kennedy Hill overdosed in 2019 at age 22.
Maeve Kennedy McKean and her 8-year-old son Gideon drowned in a canoe accident in 2020.
And now Tatiana Schlossberg joins this horrifying timeline with a terminal diagnosis that gives her months, not years.
https://twitter.com/WilliamsKerene/status/1992314596569596354?s=20
The Burden No Family Should Carry
Schlossberg wrestles with guilt over adding another chapter to her family's tragedy.
"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," she 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."⁷
Caroline Kennedy has already buried her father, her uncle Bobby, her mother Jackie, and her brother John Jr.
Now she's watching her middle daughter die.
https://twitter.com/AriaaJaeger/status/1992567088771407967?s=20
Schlossberg's siblings Rose and Jack have spent the last 18 months "raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day."⁸
Jack Schlossberg just announced he's running for Congress weeks before his sister revealed she's dying.
The Kennedy family soldier on through pain that would break lesser people.
But even they must wonder when the curse will finally release its grip.
Whether you believe in curses or just see a family that's lived too much life in the public eye, the facts speak for themselves.
Since 1944, at least 15 members of the Kennedy family have died tragically young or violently.
Tatiana Schlossberg will soon become number 16.
And there's not a damn thing anyone can do to stop it.
¹ Tatiana Schlossberg, "A Battle with My Blood," The New Yorker, November 22, 2025.
² – ⁸ Ibid.
