Caroline Kennedy, visibly moved, spoke publicly for the first time about the tragic loss of her daughter, Tatiana Schlossberg, who succumbed to cancer at the age of 35 last year.
During the Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston on Sunday, the political heiress struggled to hold back tears as she honored her late daughter.
“We remember Tatiana, who served on this library’s board and embodied everything my parents stood for in her beautiful, amazing, and too-short life,” Caroline expressed, pausing to regain her composure as the audience erupted in applause.
Caroline Kennedy stands as the sole surviving child of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
At 68, Caroline is the heir to one of America’s most storied political legacies, having previously held positions as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan and Australia.
Together with her husband, designer Edwin Schlossberg, Caroline has three children: Rose, Tatiana, and Jack. Tragically, Tatiana passed away from acute myeloid leukemia in December.
The death was relatively sudden, as the environmental journalist had only been diagnosed with the devastating disease seven months prior.
Tatiana shared her diagnosis in a New Yorker article, saying she had no symptoms and was ‘one of the healthiest people I knew’ when she received the news.
Caroline Kennedy has opened up in public for the first time about the passing of her daughter Tatiana Schlossberg, who died from cancer aged just 35 last year
Caroline is the only surviving child of former President John F Kennedy and former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She is pictured with her husband Edwin Schlossberg, son Jack Schlossberg, and late daughter Tatiana Schlossberg at the 2023 Profile in Courage Awards
Caroline hugs her daughter Tatiana outside the JFK Library in May 2000
Doctors only found the disease through routine blood tests after she gave birth to her second child, in what was to become the latest tragedy to befall the family.
The family has been plagued by a series of deaths, accidents, assassinations and other heartbreaking calamities over the last several decades.
Caroline lost her father to an assassin’s bullet when she was five years old in 1963, while her mother Jacqueline died of lymphoma in 1994 aged just 64.
Her uncle Robert Kennedy – JFK’s brother – was murdered by an assassin in 1968.
Further tragedy struck the family in July 1999 when Caroline’s only sibling, John F. Kennedy Jr, crashed the plane he was piloting while flying to a family wedding in Martha’s Vineyard due to his inexperience in the cockpit.
The smash killed John, 38, his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, 33, and Carolyn’s sister Lauren Bessette, 34.
The saga has recently been canonized in hit Hulu series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette – a dramatization which has been sharply criticized by Jack Schlossberg for what he called a ‘grotesque display’ of ‘fiction’ presented as fact.
Tatiana also spoke at the ceremony in 2023. This year, former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell (pictured center between Jack Schlossberg and Caroline Kennedy) was recognized at the JFK Profile in Courage Award for his efforts to preserve the central bank’s independence
Tatiana Schlossberg died from acute myeloid leukemia in December at the age of just 35
Tatiana also addressed the so-called ‘Kennedy curse’ in her New Yorker essay, saying that she did not want to add ‘a new tragedy’ to her mother’s life.
‘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.’
Tatiana’s brother, New York Democratic Congressional hopeful Jack Schlossberg, 33, also attended the Profile in Courage Awards alongside his mother.
Caroline thanked him for his commitment to the foundation and praised him for helping introduce his grandfather’s legacy to Gen Z.
‘I’m so proud of him for allowing thousands of people to live in politics again and I know my father would be too,’ she said.
Since 1989, the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award has recognized public servants who make what the foundation describes as courageous decisions of conscience despite personal or professional consequences.
Previous recipients include former Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former Vice President Mike Pence, and Tatiana also spoke at the ceremony in 2023.
John F Kennedy was brutally shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas on November 22, 1963
Tatiana with her mother Caroline and father Edwin Schlossberg in Boston in 2023
Britain’s Prince William is welcomed by US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennedy (right), Jack Schlossberg (second left) and Tatiana to the John F Kennedy Library in Boston in 2022
This year, former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was recognized with an award honoring his efforts to preserve the central bank’s independence.
He spoke alongside the Kennedys to praise the central bank as ‘the foundation and the embodiment of our democracy’ and argued that the Fed’s independence was a ‘priceless asset’ that must be protected.
Powell, who frequently clashed with Trump during his eight years as chair, stepped down as his term expired in May. He was succeeded by Trump appointee Kevin Warsh.
He took to the stage alongside Caroline Kennedy and Jack Schlossberg, whose fates as political scions were sealed decades ago when then-president JFK was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963.
JFK was in Texas with Jackie, and then-vice president Lyndon B Johnson, preparing to deliver a speech on the strength of the US, but he never reached the podium.
The president was shot three times as he rode in an open-top limousine, waving to crowds in Dallas.
Seated to his left was the first lady, his wife of ten years, who cradled him and screamed out for help following the shocking assassination, which was captured by TV crews and reporters in real time.
Three shots were fired in total. The first bullet missed, while the second struck JFK near the base of the back of his neck and exited out of the front of his neck.
The third bullet entered the back of his head on the right and exited out the same side, causing the wound that ultimately killed him.
