“Reality surpasses all imagination,” the famous saying goes, and often it rings true. Just look at life since 2020. At least one family knows that all too well. For a change, we are not talking about the Kardashians or the British royal family, but about what might be considered their American counterpart: the Kennedys.
Since the mid-20th century, one of the most famous dynasties in the United States and around the world has made headlines time and again, almost always under tragic circumstances — assassinations, fatal accidents and even a lobotomy. The family is large. Irish Catholic by origin, many of its members had numerous children — Robert F. Kennedy, for example, died at 43 leaving behind 11 children — giving what some have grimly dubbed the serial killer named “Death” no shortage of potential victims.
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The Kennedy family
(Photo: Bachrach/Getty Images)
Still, the scale of tragedy is hard to fathom. Of the nine children of family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., four died unnatural deaths — two were assassinated and two were killed in plane crashes — and two others endured devastating life events, including a lobotomy and a near-fatal accident. The so-called curse spared neither children nor grandchildren, who fell victim to their own tragedies. Now, some say, it has reached the great-grandchildren.
Amid the grief, the family also produced compelling and influential figures — and more than a few romances, including that of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, whose love story, too, was cut short. Tragically, their crash was only one episode in a chain of sorrow that has struck the family again and again.
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John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette
(Photo: AP)
The Kennedy dramas began in the early 20th century. Joseph and Rose Kennedy married in 1914, launching the famed dynasty. They had nine children: Joseph Patrick Jr., John Fitzgerald, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert Francis, Jean and Edward, known as Ted.
Joseph Kennedy entered politics and served as U.S. ambassador to Britain in the late 1930s. He was widely regarded as charismatic. Some biographers have also described him as antisemitic.
Those searching for the roots of the family’s “curse” often point to a tragedy the parents themselves set in motion. Their third child, Rosemary, was introverted and struggled academically. At 11, she was sent to a boarding school for children with intellectual disabilities. At 15, she moved to a convent school with a special tutor, her writing skills reportedly at a fourth-grade level.
In her early 20s, her condition deteriorated, according to her sister Eunice. Rosemary experienced violent mood swings, lashed out physically and suffered seizures. When suspicions arose that she was sexually active — possibly with more than one man — her father, unwilling to endure rumors and embarrassment, approved a lobotomy on doctors’ advice. The procedure, which severs connections to the brain’s frontal lobe, was performed in 1941, long before public awareness of mental health issues had evolved. Later assessments suggested Rosemary may have suffered from depression rather than an intellectual disability.
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Rosemary Kennedy
(Photo: Bettmann / Contributor)
The operation left the 23-year-old unable to speak coherently, with cognitive abilities comparable to those of a toddler. She spent the rest of her life in institutions. According to reports, her mother did not visit her for 20 years and her father never did. The procedure became public knowledge only in 1987. Unlike many Kennedys who died young, Rosemary lived to 86, dying in 2005.
Though less known than other tragedies, Rosemary’s story marked the beginning of what many describe as an unending series of disasters.
The eldest son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., was expected to follow his father into politics and, perhaps, the presidency. Instead, he became the first sibling to die prematurely. In 1944, during a secret mission in World War II, his military aircraft exploded over the English Channel.
Four years later, Kathleen Kennedy died in a plane crash en route to a holiday with her fiancé. Years earlier, she had been widowed when her husband, the Marquess of Hartington, was killed by a sniper in Belgium less than a month after Joseph Jr.’s death.
The family rose to political prominence in the early 1960s when John F. Kennedy was elected president, fulfilling his father’s ambitions.
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John Kennedy
(Photo: GettyImages)
The Democrat won the White House in 1960 and was preparing to seek reelection when, on Nov. 22, 1963, he was shot and killed while riding in an open car with his wife, Jacqueline, in Dallas.
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John Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy
(Photo: National Archive/Newsmakers)
The assassination became one of the defining moments in American history, spawning investigations, cultural works and conspiracy theories. Lee Harvey Oswald, the convicted gunman, was himself killed two days later by Jack Ruby, who died of cancer in 1967.
Earlier in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy had lost the couple’s premature infant son, Patrick, who lived just 39 hours.
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John and Jacqueline Kennedy with their children, Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr.
(Photo: National Archive/Newsmakers)
Before the decade ended, Americans — and the Kennedys — were shaken again. Robert F. Kennedy, known as Bobby, was assassinated on June 5, 1968, while running for president. He was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian Christian immigrant from Jerusalem.
The motives for the assassination remain unclear. Sirhan initially said he acted in response to Kennedy’s support for Israel during the Six-Day War, but later changed his account, claiming he had “acted unconsciously, possibly as a result of hypnotic brainwashing.”
He was sentenced to death in 1969, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison, where he remains. In 2021, a parole board recommended his release, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom rejected the decision. Sirhan, now 81, is expected to be eligible to seek parole again in 2027.
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Sirhan Sirhan
(Photo: Keystone/Getty Images)
After the assassinations of John and Robert, their brother Ted Kennedy remained in politics. In 1964, he survived a plane crash that killed an aide and the pilot, escaping with broken bones. In 1969, he drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island with passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. He escaped the submerged car but failed to save her.
He contacted police about 10 hours later, drawing intense criticism and allegations he had been drinking. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended sentence. The incident effectively ended his presidential prospects, though he served in the Senate for 47 years.
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The Kennedy brothers: John, Bobby and Ted
(Photo: AP)
There was even an unexpected Israeli connection: an alleged romance with Israeli businesswoman and former lawmaker Pnina Rosenblum. In her memoir, “The Road to the Dream,” she wrote: “He was dynamic, mischievous and a lover of women. We met in Washington, and I remember him arriving in his red Mustang with a bottle of wine. I even cooked him dinner — chops and steamed vegetables.”
Ted Kennedy died in 2009 at 77 of a brain tumor. In 2011, his daughter Kara Kennedy died of a heart attack at 51.
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Ted Kennedy and Pnina Rosenblum
(Photo: Gettyimages)
Robert F. Kennedy’s children and grandchildren also faced tragedy. His fourth son, David, struggled with drug addiction after witnessing his father’s assassination on television. In 1984, he died of a drug overdose in a hotel room. In 1997, another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident in Aspen, Colorado, after crashing into a tree.
In 2012, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ex-wife, Mary Richardson, died by suicide after years of battling addiction and depression. In 2019, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, a granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, died of an apparent overdose. Months later, Maeve Kennedy McKean and her 8-year-old son, Gideon, drowned after their canoe was swept away in the Chesapeake Bay.
In the 1980s and 1990s, John F. Kennedy Jr., the slain president’s son, became one of the family’s most prominent figures. A lawyer and magazine publisher, he was named People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1988.
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John F. Kennedy Jr. and actress Daryl Hannah
(Photo: GettyImages)
In 1996, he married Carolyn Bessette, a former fashion publicist. They had been married just three years when their private plane, piloted by Kennedy himself, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, likely due to spatial disorientation caused by heavy fog and darkness.
Kennedy, his wife and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, were en route to the wedding of his cousin, Rory Kennedy, when they were killed. It later emerged that he had not completed all recommended flight training or accumulated the suggested number of flying hours.
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John F. Kennedy Jr. with his wife, Carolyn, and his mother, Jacqueline
(Photo: Getty Images / Staff)
The sad stories continue to this day. In December 2025, Tatiana Schlossberg, a granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, died at 35 — just one month after revealing she had terminal cancer.
In an essay published in The New Yorker, Schlossberg expressed deep sorrow at adding another tragedy to her family’s long history of loss. “All my life I tried to be good — to be a good student, a good sister and a good daughter, to protect my mother and never sadden or anger her,” she wrote. “Now I have added another tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it.”
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Tatiana Schlossberg
(Photo: AP Photo/Steven Senne)
While the Kennedy name no longer dominates headlines as it once did, many descendants remain public figures. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the slain senator, is an attorney and political figure who serves as health secretary in President Donald Trump’s administration, despite his father having been a Democrat. His role, like much associated with Trump, has drawn criticism, including from relatives.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
(Photo: REUTERS / Kevin Lamarque)
There are also younger stars in the extended family: actor Patrick Schwarzenegger is the son of Maria Shriver, a third-generation member of the Kennedy family, and her former husband, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Their daughter Katherine is married to actor Chris Pratt.
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Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger
(Photo: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Over the years, many have wondered whether the Kennedys were truly under a curse. The theories have ranged from mystical to psychological — and as often happens, Jews have surfaced in some of them.
One claim suggested the family fell victim to a “Pulsa Denura,” a Kabbalistic curse. Journalist Yigal Raviv addressed the issue in 2013. In an interview with ynet, he said: “Joseph Kennedy was the U.S. ambassador in London at the start of World War II. Some biographies strongly claim that a group of Jewish rabbis in England placed a Pulsa Denura curse on him. Today, after what happened to Rabin, we know what that means. According to those rabbis, all the disasters that befell the Kennedy family were the result of that curse.”
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John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy
(Photo: Bettmann / Contributor)
Another theory holds that Joseph Kennedy was cursed by a rabbi because, during his tenure as ambassador in London, he refused to help Jews flee the Nazis. A lighter version claims Kennedy had a heated argument with a rabbi during a sea voyage, and that the rabbi, angered by the dispute, cursed his descendants at the end of the trip.
A more grounded explanation suggests the Kennedys were simply a competitive, risk-taking family, many of whose members lived under intense public scrutiny and pressure — a combination that often ends in tragedy.
