Every Kennedy family tragedy that has fueled rumors of a 'Kennedy curse'

• In 1969, Ted Kennedy publicly referenced the curse when apologizing for fleeing a fatal car crash.

The group was dropping off Bessette on the island before Kennedy and Bessette-Kennedy planned to travel on to Hyannis to attend his cousin’s wedding.

However, after encountering hazy conditions off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Kennedy, the plane’s pilot, crashed the plane into the ocean, killing everyone on board. 

As Coast Guard officials searched for the missing bodies, the public outpouring of grief grew over the tragedy of the three young passengers’ deaths.

Twenty years later, in 2019, tragedy struck the next generation of Kennedys when Saoirse Kennedy Hill, Robert’s granddaughter, died from an accidental overdose.

Saoirse died of an overdose at the family’s compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, The New York Times reported. She was 22 years old when she died, and had previously written about her struggle with depression, which she called “deep bouts of sadness that felt like a heavy boulder on my chest.”

“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse. Her life was filled with hope, promise, and love,” the family said in an official statement. 

In 2020, another of Robert’s granddaughters, Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean, and her 8-year-old son, Gideon, died in a canoe accident.

The mother and son went missing in a canoe while searching for a ball that had drifted out into the Chesapeake Bay. Both of their bodies were later found by divers, The New York Times reported.

Tatiana Schlossberg, the eldest child of Caroline Kennedy, died in December 2025.

In a November 2025 essay for The New Yorker, Schlossberg revealed that she had been diagnosed with terminal acute myeloid leukemia. Doctors discovered the cancer shortly after she gave birth to her daughter in May 2024.

In the essay, Schlossberg reflected on the pain her diagnosis caused her family, writing that she had spent her life trying to protect her mother before facing a tragedy she could not prevent.

Schlossberg and her husband, George Moran, had two children: their daughter, Josephine Moran, born in May 2024, and their son, Edwin Garrett Moran, born in April 2022. He is the first great-grandchild of John F. Kennedy.

The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation announced that Schlossberg died on December 30. She was 35.

Kyle Kennedy, the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., died at the age of 42.

Kyle Francis Kennedy, the granddaughter of Robert and Ethel, and daughter of Michael Kennedy (who died in a 1997 skiing accident), died on September 21 at her home in Westwood, Massachusetts.

She spent much of her career in education, advocating for more equitable elementary education.

Though her cause of death has not been publicly disclosed as of October 21, she struggled with health issues over the past few years, including a severe spinal cord injury that left her with long-term paralysis and other serious health challenges, according to Kennedy’s obituary.

After her injury, Kennedy continued her advocacy work by testifying before the Massachusetts State House about discrimination in healthcare against disabled individuals.

She is survived by her former husband, Liam Kerr, and their two sons, Conor, 12, and Declan, 10. Their daughter, Josephine, was a twin to Conor and died just days after she was born in 2014.

Even if some otherworldly force like a curse isn’t at play, it’s undeniable that the Kennedy family has suffered a long string of tragedies and heartbreak.

In 2018, Edward Klein, who wrote a book about the Kennedy curse, defended his claim about the misfortune the Kennedy family experienced.

“I’ve looked high and low and cannot find another family since the ancient Greek House of Atreus that has suffered more calamities and misfortunes than the Kennedys,” Klein, the author of “The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America’s First Family for 150 Years,” told The Washington Post.

“The humanity of their story is what keeps us engaged,” Kennedy family biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli told NBC News in 2019. “We peer behind the scenes of their wealthy lifestyle, and we see, for all the advantages they have, tragedy can still happen.”