(LOOTPRESS) – Tatiana Schlossberg — an environmental journalist, author, and granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy — has died at the age of 35 following a battle with acute myeloid leukemia, her family announced Tuesday.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” the family said in a statement shared on social media.
Schlossberg publicly revealed her cancer diagnosis in an essay published Nov. 22 in The New Yorker. She wrote that doctors discovered the disease — a rare form of leukemia with a mutation known as Inversion 3 — on May 25, 2024, the day she gave birth to her second child, after medical staff detected an abnormally high white blood cell count.
She spent five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York before continuing treatment at home, later undergoing chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant. In her essay, Schlossberg reflected candidly on the emotional weight of confronting a terminal illness while raising young children.
“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… wouldn’t remember me.”
Schlossberg was the daughter of artist Edwin Schlossberg and U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, the eldest child of the late president. She built a respected career in journalism, covering climate and environmental issues for The New York Times and contributing to The Atlantic and The Washington Post. Her 2019 book, Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have, examined the hidden climate costs of modern consumer habits.
Known for immersing herself in her reporting, Schlossberg once completed a 30-mile cross-country ski race in Wisconsin as part of a story. In her later writing, she described the shock of receiving her diagnosis despite what she said had been an active and healthy lifestyle — noting she swam a mile in a pool the day before giving birth.
Her essay also touched on broader themes of public health and policy, including criticism of her cousin, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, and concerns about vaccine access while she was severely immunocompromised during treatment.
Schlossberg’s work and writing earned recognition for both its rigor and its deeply personal perspective, particularly as she chronicled her experience with illness in recent months.
Funeral arrangements and further details were not immediately released.
