Tatiana Schlossberg Dies at 35

Tatiana Schlossberg, a climate reporter who came from America's most famous political dynasty but made her own name in journalism, has died at 35, her family said Tuesday. "Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts," relatives announced in a social media post. Schlossberg, the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and artist Edwin Schlossberg and a granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, had disclosed in a New Yorker essay last month that she was living with acute myeloid leukemia marked by a rare mutation known as Inversion 3, NBC News reports.

The cancer was discovered on May 25, 2024, the day she delivered her second child, after a doctor flagged an unusually high white blood cell count. Schlossberg described spending five weeks at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital before continuing chemotherapy at home and eventually undergoing a bone marrow transplant. In the essay, she wrote candidly about facing a terminal prognosis while parenting two young children. After a doctor told her a clinical trial might extend her life "for a year, maybe," she said her first thought was that her children "wouldn't remember me." She also reflected on the shock of the diagnosis given her active lifestyle; she had swum a mile in a pool the day before giving birth.

A former New York Times reporter, Schlossberg specialized in environmental coverage and contributed to outlets including the Atlantic and the Washington Post. Her 2019 book Inconspicuous Consumption examined how everyday habits shape the climate crisis. She once completed a 30-mile, seven-hour cross-country ski race in Wisconsin for a story. Schlossberg is survived by husband George Moran and their two children, CNN reports.

In her final essay, she also leveled sharp criticism at her cousin, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., calling him "an embarrassment to me and the rest of my family" over his vaccine skepticism and political rise, and said she worried that his stance could complicate access to the immunizations she needed while severely 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.