Tatiana Schlossberg Dead at 35: The Kennedy Tragedy That Feels Different
I usually roll my eyes at Kennedy coverage. I do. The endless fascination with that family, the tragedy porn, the way every outlet trips over itself whenever anything happens to any of them. Its exhausting honestly.
But this one stopped me.
Tatiana Schlossberg died Tuesday morning. She was 35. Thirty five years old with two little kids and a career she actually built herself and a husband who apparently loved her very much and then just… cancer. The worst kind.
Her family announced it through the JFK Library Foundation. “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts.”
Six weeks. Thats all the time between when she told the world she was dying and when she actually died. She wrote this essay in The New Yorker back in November about having acute myeloid leukemia with something called Inversion 3 which is apparently a mutation found in less than 2% of cases. Doctors found it the day after she gave birth to her daughter in May 2024. Her white blood cell count was through the roof and everything just… unraveled from there.
She had swum a mile in a pool the day before giving birth. Nine months pregnant swimming laps. She wasnt sick. Didnt feel sick. And then suddenly she was dying and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
I keep thinking about that. How you can be that healthy, that active, that alive, and then just… not.
CNN had all the details about the treatments she tried. Chemotherapy. Bone marrow transplant from her sister Rose. Some clinical trial for CAR-T cell therapy. The cancer kept coming back anyway.
She wasnt just some socialite Kennedy either and I think thats what gets me. She was an actual environmental journalist. Worked at the New York Times covering climate stuff. Wrote a book in 2019 called Inconspicuous Consumption that apparently won awards. Did a 30-mile cross country ski race for a story once. Thirty miles. In Wisconsin. For journalism.
And the whole RFK Jr situation made everything worse in this horrible ironic way. Her cousin runs Health and Human Services now despite thinking vaccines are suspect. And she wrote about worrying whether shed be able to access childhood vaccines she needed to retake because her immune system was shot from treatment. Imagine watching the guy who thinks measles shots are dangerous get confirmed to run healthcare while youre literally dying from cancer.
Her brother Jack is running for Congress. Her mom Caroline was ambassador to like two different countries. Her grandmother edited books for a living. Her grandfather well. You know.
The Kennedys know tragedy the way most of us know what we’re having for dinner. Its just part of the deal apparently. Caroline lost her dad at five, her uncle at ten, her brother in that plane crash in 1999. Now her daughter.
Tatiana wrote in that New Yorker essay about the guilt she felt. About being another tragedy her mother would have to survive. “For my whole life, I have tried to be good,” she said. And now she felt like she was letting everyone down by dying.
Jesus.
She left behind her husband George, a doctor. A one year old daughter. A three year old son. And a bunch of articles about saving the planet that will outlive all of us probably.
I started this wanting to be cynical about Kennedy coverage and I just… cant. Not with this one.
Sometimes people just die too young and theres no angle to work. No hot take. Just sadness.
