Caroline Kennedy is facing yet another unthinkable tragedy: the terminal cancer diagnosis of her youngest daughter Tatiana Schlossberg.
Over the weekend, Tatiana, 35, revealed her cancer battle in a heartbreaking essay for The New Yorker.
“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.
Caroline Kennedy is facing another unthinkable tragedy: her youngest daughter’s terminal cancer diagnosis. (FilmMagic)
“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.”
Tatiana is battling acute myeloid leukemia, which was discovered in 2024 after she had welcomed her second child.
It was after giving birth to her daughter her doctor noticed an imbalance in her white blood cell count.
Tatiana was eventually diagnosed with the cancer, which she describes as “a rare mutation called Inversion 3.”
READ MORE: ‘Visionary’ Australian chef dies aged 62 days after mother
READ MORE: Australia’s best sausages of 2025 have been crowned
READ MORE: The perfect Christmas gift for the animal lover in your family
Tatiana Schlossberg has acute myeloid leukemia, discovered after she welcomed her second child in 2024. (Getty Images for goop)
Tatiana, pictured with her mother and brother Jack, has revealed it is a terminal diagnosis. (Getty)
“I did not – could not – believe that they were talking about me. I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant,” she wrote.
“I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew.”
Tatiana began aggressive treatment for the disease, which included months of chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant, spending five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City before being transferred to Memorial Sloan Kettering for a bone-marrow transplant.
She joined a clinical trial of CAR-T-cell therapy but doctors said she would live for just a year.
Tatiana and her husband George Moran married in 2017 and are parents to son Edwin, three, and their daughter born in May last year.
It’s a cruel blow for Caroline, 67, who has endured more heartbreak than one can imagine in one lifetime.
Her father, US president John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963 when she was just six, followed by the assassination of her uncle Robert F. Kennedy just five years later.
Caroline’s father, US president John F. Kennedy, was assassinated when she was just six. (The Washington Post via Getty Im)
She has rarely spoken about the loss of her father, but in 2017, in a video for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library marking the 100th anniversary of JFK’s birth, she said, “I have thought about him and missed him every day of my life.”
Caroline and her brother, John F Kennedy Jr., also lost their mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1994 when she died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, when she was just 64.
Kennedy family tree: A who’s who of the influential family
At a forum held at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in 2011 for the launch of the book Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy, Caroline spoke of her mother’s choice to contribute to the publication.
She said it “wasn’t easy, but she felt she was doing it for my father’s sake, and for history’s”. Caroline wrote the introduction to the book.
For a daily dose of 9honey, subscribe to our newsletter here.
Caroline and her brother John F Kennedy Jr. lost mother Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1994, aged 64. (Bettmann Archive)
In 1999, her brother John F. Kennedy Jr. tragically died aged just 38 after crashing the light plane he was piloting in to Martha’s Vineyard in 1999.
His wife Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette were with him.
Caroline oversaw his burial at sea in a private ceremony on board US Navy destroyer, the USS Briscoe, eight kilometres off the coast of Massachusetts, to avoid a media spectacle, as per her brother’s wishes.
She hasn’t spoken publicly about her brother’s death, and she is yet to comment on her daughter’s terminal diagnosis.
Caroline’s brother and sister-in-law Carolyn Bessette Kennedy were tragically killed in a plane crash in 1999. (Lawrence Schwartzwald)
JFK Jr, pictured with Carolyn, was just 38 when he died. (Getty)
Caroline Kennedy and her husband Edwin Schlossberg married in 1986 and are parents to Rose, 37, Tatiana, 35, and Jack, 32.
Tatiana has worked for most of her life as an environmental journalist in New York.
Caroline recently spoke to CNN about her children, saying: “They, I think, are the best people to take his [JFK’s] message forward into the 21st century.”
READ MORE: Our comprehensive A-Z list of the best early Black Friday deals
Caroline pictured with daughter Tatiana and son Jack, with Prince William. (WireImage)
Caroline has spoken glowingly of her three children and their many achievements. (MediaNews Group via Getty Images)
Her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr is currently serving as US Health and Human Service’s Chief for the US President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, having turned his back on his family’s long history of Democratic politics.
Caroline served as US Ambassador for Australia from 2022 until 2024.
A dynasty continues: Meet the next generation of Kennedys
FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.