Caroline Kennedy’s daughter Tatiana Schlossberg shared that she was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer after giving birth to her second baby, with doctors predicting she likely has one year to live.
Tatiana Schlossberg is bravely fighting a difficult health battle.
The 35-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg shared that she has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare blood cancer, with doctors giving her a terminal prognosis.
In an essay for The New Yorker published Nov. 22, Schlossberg explained that she learned of her disease hours after giving birth to her second baby with husband George Moran in May 2024, when her doctor discovered that her white blood cell count was abnormally high.
“It could just be something related to pregnancy and delivery, the doctor said, or it could be leukemia,” she recalled. “‘It’s not leukemia,’ I told George. ‘What are they talking about?’”
After receiving her diagnosis, the environmental journalist—who also shares 3-year-old Edwin Jr. with Moran—was told she would need months of chemotherapy as well as a bone-marrow transplant, admitting she had difficulty absorbing the sharp turn of events.
“I did not—could not—believe that they were talking about me,” she recalled. “I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew.”
“I had a son whom I loved more than anything and a newborn I needed to take care of,” Schlossberg continued. “This could not possibly be my life.”
In January, Schlossberg embarked on a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy, an immunotherapy meant to fight certain blood cancers. After several rounds of the trial, her doctor informed her that she likely has one year to live.
Amid her cancer journey, Schlossberg noted that her husband “did everything for me that he possibly could,” adding that her family, including her siblings Jack Schlossberg and Rose Schlossberg, also stepped up for her.
“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 wrote. “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.”
Schlossberg also detailed her own feelings about her prognosis.
“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 said. “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.”
As a result, Schlossberg is focused on the things she can control, like spending as much time as possible with her kids.
“Mostly, I try to live and be with them now,” she shared. “But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go.”
For a detailed guide to the Kennedy family, read on.
Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy
Joseph Patrick “Joe” Kennedy married Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald on Oct. 7, 1914.
By 1932, they had nine children together: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy, Rosemary Kennedy, Kathleen Kennedy, Eunice Kennedy, Patricia Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Jean Kennedy and Edward Kennedy.
Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.
Born July 25, 1915, Joe Jr. was going to be president, as far as his father was concerned.
He was a delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention and planned to run for Congress after he got out of the Navy. But the 29-year-old and his co-pilot Wilford John Willy were killed Aug. 12, 1944, when explosives they were carrying detonated prematurely while on a bombing run that was part of Operation Aphrodite.
Neither pilot’s body was ever recovered and their names are among those on the Tablets of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial honoring casualties of World War II.
John F. Kennedy
It was John, born May 29, 1917, who made it to Congress, then became a U.S. senator and ultimately was elected president in 1960.
He married Jacqueline Bouvier on Sept. 12, 1953, and they welcomed daughter Caroline Kennedy on Nov. 27, 1957, and son John F. Kennedy Jr. on Nov. 25, 1960.
A daughter, Arabella, was stillborn in 1956 and son Patrick, born prematurely on Aug. 7, 1963, lived for only 39 hours.
JFK was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, one of the defining events of the 20th century.
Caroline Kennedy
Caroline, the U.S. ambassador to Japan during the Obama administration and to Australia for the Biden administration, married Edwin “Ed” Schlossberg in 1986.
They share daughters Rose Kennedy Schlossberg (born June 25, 1988) and Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg (May 5, 1990) and son John “Jack” Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg (Jan. 19, 1993).
TV producer Rose went to Harvard like her mom and married restaurateur Rory McAuliffe in 2022.
Tatiana—a journalist who didn’t know at the time that her 2014 New York Times article about a dead bear being found in Central Park involved her cousin RFK Jr.—graduated from Yale and married college sweetheart George Moran in 2017. They welcomed a son, Edwin Jr., in 2022, and a daughter in 2024.
In November 2025, Tatiana shared in an essay for The New Yorker that she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare blood cancer, which her doctors have said is terminal.
Jack Schlossberg
Jack—a Yale alum, graduate of Harvard’s JD/MBA program and quite the hoot on social media—spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention and was a political correspondent for Vogue covering the most recent presidential election.
“I am inspired by my family’s legacy of public service,” he told Vogue in 2024. “I take that very seriously, and I want to contribute in my own way. I have big dreams, but I also know that I’m trying to make a positive impact today.”
John F. Kennedy Jr.
The former first son, named People’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1988, was considered one of the most eligible bachelors on the planet before he married Calvin Klein publicist Carolyn Bessette on Sept. 21, 1996.
In a shattering twist of fate for his oft-grieving family, JFK Jr. died young like his father, his potential snuffed out when he was killed, along with Carolyn and her sister Lauren Bessette, in a plane crash on July 16, 1999.
Rosemary Kennedy
Rosemary (at right, with sister Kathleen and mom Rose) was born Sept. 13, 1918.
While she attended a special boarding school for students with learning difficulties, Rosemary had behavioral issues that led to her father’s decision to have her undergo a prefrontal lobotomy when she was 23.
Rosemary emerged from the experimental procedure—which was touted as a potential cure for mental illness and Joe did hope it would help her—severely disabled and spent the rest of her life (she lived till Jan. 7, 2005) institutionalized.
“All along I had continued to believe that she could have lived her life as a Kennedy girl, just a little slower,” Rose told historian Doris Kearns Goodwin years later. “But then it was all gone in a matter of minutes.”
Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy
Born Feb. 20, 1920, Kathleen got a kick out of life, hence her jaunty nickname.
She married William Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington, in a civil ceremony in London on May 6, 1944—against her mother’s wishes, as her beloved wasn’t Catholic, so the bride’s big brother Joe Jr. was the only member of her family who attended the wedding.
A month later, William, a major in the British Army, was killed by a sniper in Belgium.
She remained in England and fell for still-married William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam. Before he could secure a divorce, they both died when the plane carrying them to the French Riviera crashed on May 13, 1948.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice was born July 10, 1921.
The devoted philanthropist and founder of the Special Olympics married Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. on May 23, 1953.
They had five children—Robert “Bobby” Shriver III (born April 28, 1954), Maria Shriver (Nov. 6, 1955), Timothy (Aug. 29, 1959), Mark (Feb. 17, 1964) and Anthony (July 20, 1965).
Maria Shriver
Maria wed Arnold Schwarzenegger on April 26, 1986, at the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.
The power couple reigned as governor and first lady of California from November 2003 until January 2011, but they split up not long after once Arnold confessed to fathering a son, Joseph Baena, with the family’s longtime housekeeper.
Katherine Schwarzenegger
When she died at 88, Eunice had 19 grandchildren, including Maria’s four kids with her now-ex-husband: Katherine Schwarzenegger (born Dec. 13, 1989), Patrick Schwarzenegger (Sept. 18, 1993), Christina Schwarzenegger (July 23, 1991) and Christopher Schwarzenegger (Sept. 27, 1997).
Katherine wed Chris Pratt on June 8, 2019, and they share three children, Lyla (Aug. 6, 2020), Eloise (May 21, 2022) and Ford (Nov. 8, 2024). The actor is also dad to son Jack (born Aug. 17, 2012) with ex-wife Anna Faris.
Patricia Kennedy Lawford
Patricia, born May 6, 1924, brought the Rat Pack into the family when she married Peter Lawford on April 24, 1954.
Her marriage to the British actor produced sons Christopher Lawford (born in 1955), Sydney Maleia Lawford (1956), Victoria Francis Lawford (1958), and Robin Elizabeth Lawford before they divorced in 1966.
Peter, who died in 1984, was a close confidante of his brother-in-law JFK and is generally credited with introducing the future president to Marilyn Monroe during a visit to the Lawfords’ Malibu home.
Patricia passed away in 2006. Her thrice-married son Christopher died after suffering a heart attack in 2018.