Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, revealed on Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, that she has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has less than one year to live. The 35-year-old environmental journalist shared her story in an essay published in The New Yorker, detailing her battle with acute myeloid leukemia since May 2024.
Schlossberg, the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, learned of her diagnosis shortly after giving birth to her daughter on May 25, 2024, at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York. Just hours after delivery, her doctor noticed her white blood cell count had reached 131,000 cells per microlitre—far above the normal range of 4,000 to 11,000. What should have been a joyous moment quickly turned into a medical crisis.
Schlossberg wrote in her essay that she could not believe they were talking about her, noting she had swum a mile in the pool the previous day while nine months pregnant, felt perfectly healthy, and considered herself one of the healthiest people she knew.
The diagnosis was acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation called Inversion 3, typically seen in older patients. Doctors asked repeatedly whether she had spent significant time at Ground Zero, given the prevalence of blood cancers among first responders to the Sept. 11 attacks. Although she was in New York during the attacks as a sixth-grader, she had not visited the site until years later.
Schlossberg spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center following her diagnosis, undergoing intensive chemotherapy to reduce blast cells in her bone marrow. Her care was later transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, one of the country’s largest centers for bone-marrow transplants. Despite being an avid runner who regularly covered five to 10 miles, she could not be cured by standard treatment protocols.
Her younger sister donated stem cells for a bone marrow transplant, which required hours of blood drainage to harvest the necessary cells. Schlossberg later underwent additional chemotherapy at home before joining a CAR-T-cell therapy clinical trial. CAR-T-cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy used to treat certain blood cancers by modifying a patient’s own immune cells to attack cancer cells.
Throughout her treatment, Schlossberg relied heavily on her husband, George Moran, whom she married in September 2017 at her family’s estate on Martha’s Vineyard. The couple has two children together—a three-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter. Moran, a medical doctor, handled communications with doctors and insurance companies while sleeping on hospital floors to stay by her side.
In her essay, Schlossberg also criticized her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who serves as secretary of health and human services. She expressed strong disapproval of his policies, including reports that he cut nearly half a billion dollars for mRNA vaccine research and slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest sponsor of medical research.
As someone dependent on cutting-edge medical research and clinical trials for her survival, Schlossberg wrote that Kennedy’s policies created uncertainty for patients like herself. She noted concerns among doctors about future funding and research opportunities.
The diagnosis adds another chapter to the Kennedy family’s long history of medical challenges and losses. Schlossberg’s grandmother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, died from cancer. Her brother, Jack Schlossberg, recently announced he is running for Congress.
Before her illness, Schlossberg worked as an environmental journalist for The New York Times and contributed to other major publications. Now, she focuses on creating lasting memories with her children, particularly worried that they may not remember her as they grow older.
The publication of her essay on November 22 coincided with the anniversary of her grandfather’s assassination in Dallas. In closing her piece, Schlossberg reflected on the importance of being present with her family during her remaining time, acknowledging the difficulty of living in the moment while facing terminal illness. She wrote about trying to fill her mind with memories of her children, hoping somehow to carry those moments with her.
Her parents and siblings have been supporting her family throughout her treatment. Schlossberg expressed gratitude for their support while acknowledging the pain of adding another loss to a family already marked by numerous losses over the decades.
