The Kennedy family 'curse': inside 85 years of assassinations, fatal crashes, and tragedy

Rosemary, one of Joseph and his wife Rose Fitzgerald's nine children, was described as being an animated young girl, but also intellectually challenged. When she was 23 years old, her father secretly arranged for her to have a prefrontal lobotomy, which incapacitated her permanently, leaving her with the cognitive capacity of a toddler. She was institutionalized in rural Wisconsin and largely hidden from public view for decades, and died when she was 86 years old in 2005. Her sister Eunice Kennedy founded the Special Olympics in her honor.

Practically as soon as he was born, Joseph was groomed by his ambitious father to be President of the United States. He graduated from Harvard University in 1938, and pursued studies in its esteemed law school, though he interrupted them to enlist in the Navy. His father's presidential dreams however would not come to pass; Joseph Jr. died at age 29 on August 12, 1944 in England during World War II's Operation Aphrodite, a secret bombing campaign led by the United States Army.

In 1944, Kick became Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington, when she married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington. She was widowed only four months later when he died during a battle with the Germans in Belgium. She subsequently began a relationship with Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 8th Earl Fitzwilliam, though they both died prematurely when their private plane crashed in bad weather in the mountains of Saint-Bauzile, France on May 13, 1948. Kick was just 28 years old.

Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 when he was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald while riding in a presidential motorcade with his wife. He was 46 years old.

Robert F. Kennedy kept the dreams of Camelot alive while running for president in the late 1960s, but  they were cut short on June 5, 1968. Moments after delivering his victory speech in the California Democratic presidential primary at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, RFK was shot by Sirhan Sirhan and died the following day. He was 42 years old. 

Ted Kennedy's presidential aspirations were also cut short — though for vastly different reasons — when the then-37 year old drove his car off of a bridge into a pond, leaving behind 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, who was trapped inside and drowned. He then failed to report the incident to the police until 10 hours afterwards, which sparked a major national scandal.

The son of Robert and his wife Ethel Kennedy, who shared 11 children, died when he was 28 years old of a drug overdose in Palm Beach, Florida on April 25, 1984.

JFK's sister Jean Kennedy's son was accused of raping Patricia Bowman at the Kennedy Palm Beach compound following a night out with his uncle Ted, which became a high-profile, nationally televised trial. On December 11, 1991, a six-person jury acquitted him of sexual battery and misdemeanor battery after just 77 minutes of deliberation.

Another son of Ethel and RFK, Michael Kennedy died on New Year's Eve when he was 39 after colliding with a tree while playing ski football in Colorado without a helmet on. His death came months after he was part of another Kennedy scandal, an alleged affair with his children's teenage babysitter.

John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette, and Carolyn's sister Lauren Bessette died while  traveling to his cousin Rory Kennedy's wedding in Hyannis Port. On July 16, 1999 their small plane piloted by John en route to Martha's Vineyard, where they were dropping off Lauren before heading to Hyannis Port, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean. He was 38, Carolyn 33, and her sister 34.

The estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. died by suicide at her home in Bedford, New York, amid a bitter divorce battle from the MAHA ambassador, as well as long-term struggles with depression and alcoholism. Prior to her death, her estranged husband allegedly cut her off both financially and from the Kennedy family, and she found a 2001 diary belonging to her estranged husband in which he detailed affairs with 37 different women.

On August 1, 2019, Robert and Ethel's granddaughter, their daughter Courtney Kennedy Hill's daughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill, was found dead when she was 22 years old at her family's Massachusetts estate; her cause of death was ruled an accidental overdose.

Another one of Ethel and RFK's grandchildren, their daughter Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's daughter Maeve Kennedy McKean, as well as her son Gideon, died when they were 40 and eight years old, respectively, on April 2, 2020. They drowned in the Chesapeake Bay after paddling a canoe out into severe wind and rough water to retrieve a ball that had landed in the water.

JFK's granddaughter, Caroline Kennedy's daughter with Edwin Schlossberg, died at 35 on December 30, 2025, following a battle with acute myeloid leukemia. She had been diagnosed with the disease just hours after the birth of her second child.

Kyle Francis Kennedy, another granddaughter of Ethel and RFK, daughter of their son Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, died on September 21, 2026 at her home in Westwood, Massachusetts. The educator and disability rights advocate — whose maternal grandfather was Frank Gifford, late husband of Kathie Lee Gifford — had suffered from a life-altering spinal cord injury in 2020 that left her with long-term paralysis.