Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, and granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, revealed that she suffers from terminal cancer in an essay published this Saturday by The New Yorker magazine. Schlossberg, 35, suffers from acute myeloid leukemia with a mutation called Inversion 3.
Schlossberg says she was diagnosed with cancer on May 25, 2024, the same day she gave birth to her second child. Hours after delivery, her doctor noticed an abnormally high white blood cell count and moved her to another floor for more tests.
Schlossberg initially ruled out the possibility that she had cancer, and writes that she was stunned when the diagnosis was confirmed, stating that she considered herself “one of the healthiest people” she knew.
“This couldn’t be my life,” he wrote.
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a cancer that begins in the bone marrow and spreads rapidly to the blood, according to the American Cancer Society. General symptoms are loss of appetite and weight, fatigue, fever and night sweats.
There are several subtypes that are relevant to determining prognosis. The Schlossberg subtype—an inversion of chromosome 3—is considered an unfavorable anomaly.
Schlossberg spent five weeks at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital after the birth of her daughter, before her blast count dropped enough for her to begin chemotherapy at home. His care was later moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering, where he underwent a bone marrow transplant and spent more than 50 days before returning home for further treatment.
In January, he participated in a CAR T-cell therapy clinical trial. He wrote that much of the hospital treatment coincided with the nomination of his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health, a position for which he was ultimately confirmed and for which he believes he is not qualified.
Schlossberg thanked her husband and family for their support and for the countless days they spent at her side. “My parents, brother and sister, too, have been raising my children and spending the day in my various hospital rooms almost daily for the last year and a half,” she added.
His brother, Jack Schlossberg, 32, announced his candidacy for Congress earlier this month. He is seeking the New York City seat long held by Democrat Jerry Nadler, who announced in September that he will not seek re-election.
Despite all the treatments, Schlossberg said the cancer kept coming back.
“In the last clinical trial, my doctor told me it could keep me alive for maybe a year,” he wrote. “The first thing I thought was that my children, whose faces live permanently inside my eyelids, would not remember me,” he added.
Schlossberg now strives to be present for her children.
A writer by profession, Schlossberg worked for several years as a reporter in the science section of The New York Times, where she covered the climate crisis and the environment.
Schlossberg’s essay is published on the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather’s assassination, and adds her diagnosis to a long history of tragedies in the Kennedy family. John F. Kennedy’s son, John F. Kennedy Jr., and his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, died in a plane crash in 1999. And his brother Robert F. Kennedy Sr. was assassinated in 1968.
