Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of former US President John F Kennedy and a respected climate journalist, has died at the age of 35, her family has announced.
The news was confirmed in a statement shared by the John F Kennedy Library Foundation, which said: “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts.”
In November, Schlossberg revealed she had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and wrote that doctors had given her less than a year to live.
She was the daughter of Caroline Kennedy, former US ambassador and daughter of President Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, a designer and author.
In an essay published last month in The New Yorker titled A Battle With My Blood, Schlossberg disclosed that she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in May 2024, shortly after the birth of her second child.
“My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me,” she wrote.
She detailed her treatment, which included chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, but said doctors offered little hope of recovery.
Schlossberg also reflected on the emotional toll her illness would take on her family, which has faced several tragedies over the decades. Her grandfather was assassinated in 1963, and her uncle, John F Kennedy Jr, died in a plane crash in 1999.
Her younger brother, Jack Schlossberg, is currently running for Congress in New York.
“For my whole life, I have tried to be good — to be a good student, sister and daughter,” 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.”
In the essay, Schlossberg also expressed disappointment over the appointment of her uncle, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Before publicly sharing her diagnosis, Schlossberg had built a notable career in climate journalism. She authored the book Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have and wrote for The New York Times on climate and environmental issues.
In a 2019 interview with NBC News, she described climate change as “the biggest story in the world,” saying it touched every aspect of modern life, from science and health to politics and business.
“If I could help communicate about it,” she said, “that might inspire other people to get involved and work on the issue.”
