The news of former President John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter’s cancer diagnosis has sent shockwaves through the United States.
Tatiana Schlossberg revealed this weekend that she has less than a year to live after being diagnosed with terminal blood cancer, following the birth of her daughter.
The environmental journalist wrote about her treatment in the New Yorker magazine on the 62nd anniversary of JFK’s assassination.
She criticised her uncle, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, for his scepticism of vaccines and more, in the article.
Tatiana’s diagnosis has led to people bringing up the so-called ‘Kennedy curse’ – a nod to the series of tragedies the family has faced over the years.
She appeared to allude to this in her essay, writing in the article: ‘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.
‘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.’
Here are the details of what the curse is.
What is the rumoured ‘Kennedy Curse’?
The ‘curse’ has long been blamed for the unexplained and often premature deaths which occur in the Kennedy family.
Assassinations, multiple plane crashes, and a lobotomy have caused strife in the political dynasty.
It arguably first began when the eldest Kennedy brother, Joseph, died in 1944 while serving in the Navy. He died in a plane crash at the age of 29.
Kathleen Kennedy, another sibling, died in France on a plane in 1948, just four years after her eldest brother perished.
Perhaps the most well-known Kennedy death was John F. Kennedy.
When he was serving as President of the United States, he went on a motorcade through the city of Dallas, Texas, in 1963, when he was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald at the age of 46.
John’s younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in 1968 while running for President at the age of 42.
One tragedy not widely spoken about in the family was that of Rosemary Kennedy, who underwent an experimental lobotomy in 1941 to address her ‘intellectual disabilities’.
The outcome left her unable to speak or walk, meaning she was institutionalised until her death decades later.
The bad fortune didn’t stop after the first generation of Kennedys suffered.
The son of Robert F. Kennedy, David, died of a drug overdose at the age of 28 in 1984. Another one of their sons, Michael, died in a skiing accident in 1997.
John F. Kennedy’s son, JFK Jr, died in 1999 while flying a plane with his wife, Carolyn Bessette, and her sister, Lauren, onboard.
In 2012, Robert F Kennedy’s wife, whom he was separated from at the time, took her own life amid a custody battle.
In 2019, another Kennedy granddaughter, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, was found dead from an accidental overdose in Massachusetts.
Then, in 2020, Robert F Kennedy’s granddaughter, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean and her son, Gideon, went missing while canoeing. Their bodies were retrieved days later.
Have any other Kennedys been diagnosed with cancer?
US citizens were surprised to learn that Tatiana has cancer, but other members of her family have dealt with the disease before.
Tatiana has been diagnosed with myeloid leukaemia, a type of blood cancer that originates from young white blood cells, specifically granulocytes or monocytes, in the bone marrow.
But her second cousin, Edward Kennedy Jr, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, when he was 12.
His leg was amputated to stop the disease, and he made a full recovery.
John F. Kennedy’s brother, Ted Kennedy, died from a rare form of brain cancer in 2009.
He was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the deadliest type of brain cancer, after suffering from a seizure in 2008.
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