Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of John F. Kennedy Jr., shared on Saturday that she is facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, with doctors estimating she has about a year to live. Her candid revelation was made public through an Associated Press report.
In her poignant piece for The New Yorker, titled “A Battle with My Blood,” Schlossberg, 35, disclosed that she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024, not long after welcoming her daughter. The diagnosis included a rare genetic mutation.
This mutation, identified as Inversion 3, is a genetic irregularity seen in fewer than 2% of AML cases, predominantly affecting older adults.
Schlossberg detailed her shock upon learning her white blood cell count was alarmingly high—131,000 cells per microliter, compared to the normal range of 4,000 to 11,000. “I couldn’t grasp that this was about me,” she reflected, recalling how she had swum a mile while nine months pregnant just a day prior, feeling perfectly healthy.
Over the past year, Schlossberg, who is the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, has embarked on a rigorous treatment journey, involving multiple chemotherapy sessions, two bone marrow transplants, and participation in clinical trials.
In the year since, Schlossberg, the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, said she has undergone an intense treatment process, which included several rounds of chemotherapy, two bone marrow transplants and participation in two clinical trials.
Then, in September, she was diagnosed with a form of Epstein-Barr virus, which “blasted” her kidneys and left her needing to relearn how to walk.
“During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe,” she wrote.
Schlossberg also reflected on watching from her hospital bed as her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was, “despite never having worked in medicine, public health or the government,” confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services — an appointment the Kennedys publicly condemned.
As she spent even more time receiving treatment, she “watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings.”
An environmental journalist and author, Schlossberg is married to George Moran with whom she shares two children — a 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter.
She also has two siblings, Rose, a filmmaker, and Jack, who earlier this month announced a run for Congress in New York. Schlossberg noted that her siblings have been helping her care for her children and “have held my hand unflinchingly while I have suffered.”
Schlossberg’s essay was published on the 62nd anniversary of JFK being assassinated in Dallas, Texas. She said she regrets adding to her family’s history of tragedy, which also includes the assassination of her great-uncle, former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, in 1968.
“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.”
