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JFK’s granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg, 35, criticizes RFK Jr as she reveals she has terminal cancer

2025-11-23 08:30
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JFK’s granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg, 35, criticizes RFK Jr as she reveals she has terminal cancer

Doctors have told Schlossberg she has a year to live

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JFK’s granddaughter Tatiana Schlossberg, 35, criticizes RFK Jr as she reveals she has terminal cancer

Doctors have told Schlossberg she has a year to live

Inga Parkelin New YorkSunday 23 November 2025 08:30 GMTCommentsVideo Player PlaceholderCloseRelated: Kennedy heir Jack Schlossberg running for Congress to fight TrumpLessons in Lifestyle

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Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, has criticized her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies as health secretary as she disclosed she has terminal cancer.

In a poignant essay, “A Battle with My Blood,” written for The New Yorker, the 35-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg revealed she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, with a rare mutation called Inversion 3.

“I could not be cured by a standard course of treatment,” Schlossberg said, listing the extensive treatment she would have to undergo, including a few months of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, followed by more regular chemo to “try and prevent the cancer from returning.”

“As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” she added, criticizing RFK Jr.’s decision to slash important vaccine funding.

Schlossberg ultimately underwent initial rounds of chemo before receiving a stem cell transplant from her older sister, Rose, who was a match. The transplant was a success and put her in remission, but she soon relapsed. Her doctor told her that her rare form of cancer “liked to come back.”

Tatiana Schlossberg has been diagnosed with terminal canceropen image in galleryTatiana Schlossberg has been diagnosed with terminal cancer (Getty Images for goop)Prince William, left, meets siblings Jack and Tatiana Schlossberg and their mother, Caroline Kennedy, in 2022open image in galleryPrince William, left, meets siblings Jack and Tatiana Schlossberg and their mother, Caroline Kennedy, in 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

She entered several different clinical trials. However, “during the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe,” she wrote.

Schlossberg received the diagnosis in May 2024, after the birth of her second child with husband George Moran. The couple, who have been married since 2017, also have a three-year-old son.

“My doctor noticed that my blood count looked strange. A normal white-blood-cell count is around four to eleven thousand cells per microlitre. Mine was a hundred and thirty-one thousand cells per microlitre,” she said.

“It could just be something related to pregnancy and delivery, the doctor said, or it could be leukemia.”

Schlossberg added that her immediate family has been extremely supportive through her cancer treatment.

“My parents and my brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and sitting in my various hospital rooms almost every day for the last year and a half,” she said.

“They have 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.”

As well as her sister Rose, 37, Schlossberg has a brother, Jack, 32 — JFK’s only grandson — who recently announced his intention to run for New York’s 12th congressional district.

The Kennedy family has been hit with a series of tragedies over the past 70 years. Schlossberg’s article in The New Yorker was published on the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather, President John F. Kennedy, being assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His brother, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968 while campaigning for the White House.

JFK’s son John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed in a plane crash in 1999 along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her sister, Lauren Bessette. Mary Richardson Kennedy, wife of RFK Jr., died from suicide in 2016; Saoirse Kennedy Hill, RFK’s granddaughter, died of a drug overdose in 2019; and Maeve Kennedy McKean, another granddaughter of RFK, died with her eight-year-old son Gideon during a canoeing trip in 2020.

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