• Posted January 2, 2026

Tatiana Schlossberg, Environmental Journalist and JFK’s Granddaughter, Dies at 35

Tatiana Schlossberg, an environmental journalist and the granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, has died after a battle with cancer. 

She was 35.

"Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts," her family said in a post shared Tuesday on social media.

Schlossberg revealed in a personal essay published Nov. 22 in The New Yorker that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare blood cancer. 

Further testing led to a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation called Inversion 3.

She wrote that the cancer was discovered May 25, 2024, hours after she gave birth to her second child, when a doctor noticed her white blood cell count was unusually high.

Schlossberg described spending five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian hospital in New York City, followed by chemotherapy at home and later a bone marrow transplant.

“During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe,” she wrote. "My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me."

The daughter of artist Edwin Schlossberg and diplomat Caroline Kennedy, Schlossberg built a career as a respected environmental journalist. She reported for The New York Times and contributed to The Atlantic and The Washington Post.

In 2019, she published the book "Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have."

Despite her illness, Schlossberg wrote about having lived an active life. She recalled swimming a mile while nine months pregnant and completing a 30-mile cross-country ski race in Wisconsin for a reporting assignment.

She also talked about the emotional stress of facing a terminal diagnosis while raising young kids.

"Maybe my brain is replaying my life now because I have a terminal diagnosis, and all these memories will be lost. Maybe it’s because I don’t have much time to make new ones, and some part of me is sifting through the sands," she said.

Schlossberg also wrote about politics. She criticized her cousin, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for his views on vaccines and public health. She said those views worried her, especially while she was in cancer treatment and was immunocompromised.

"I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, in the face of logic and common sense, was confirmed for the position, despite never having worked in medicine, public health or the government," she wrote.

She also expressed fear that vaccine skepticism could limit her access to childhood vaccines she needed to retake during treatment.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more on acute myeloid leukemia.

SOURCES: NBC News, Dec. 30, 2025; The New Yorker, Nov. 22, 2025