Kyle Kennedy, the granddaughter of Ethel and Bobby Kennedy and great niece of former US president John F. Kennedy, died at home on 21 September at the age of 42. The cause of death has not yet been determined and is currently under investigation.
Her tragic death contributes to the Kennedy curse conspiracy – a series of deaths, accidents, assassinations and other calamities involving the prestigious American political family.
The curse is a well-established part of the family lore and charts the unusual concentration of misfortune that the Kennedy's have endured for generations. Most notably, Kyle’s great uncle JFK was shot while he was the US president.
Kyle experienced great tragedy in her immediate family too. When she was 13, for example, her father died from head injuries following a skiing accident. She later lost her daughter when she was two days old.
The events of 'The Kennedy Curse', 1944 to present
In August 1944, John F Kennedy’s brother Joseph died when the military aircraft he was piloting exploded over East Suffolk in England. The following month, William Cavendish, the new husband of Kathleen ‘Kick’ Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s sister, was shot by a German sniper while leading his company near Heppen in Belgium.
Four years later, Kick died in a plane crash alongside her lover Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, pilot Peter Townsend and navigator Arthur Freeman in France.
In 1955, four years after Ethel Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy’s wife, gave birth to their fourth child, her parents were killed in a plane crash in Oklahoma.
Before John F. Kennedy became president, he and Jackie Kennedy welcomed a daughter called Arabella, who died at birth. They also lost a son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, two days after his premature birth in August 1963. Three months after Patrick’s death, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas while riding in a presidential limousine. His brother Robert became the Democratic presidential candidate in 1968 and was shot the night before his victory in the California primary.
In 1969, senator Ted Kennedy was leaving a party on Martha’ Vineyard and accidentally drove off a narrow bridge into Poucha Pond. His passenger Mary Jo Kopechne died inside the car, but Ted managed to escape. Following the incident, he questioned whether ‘some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys’.
By 1973, John F. Kennedy’s widow Jackie Kennedy was married to Aristotle Onassis, and his 24-year-old son Alexander Onassis died in hospital as a result of injuries sustained in an air crash. A year later to the day, Joseph P. Kennedy’s girlfriend Athalia Ponsell Lindsley was murdered at her home.
In 1984, Robert F. Kennedy’s son David A. Kennedy died of a drug overdose in Palm Beach. Meanwhile, Alexander’s sister Christina was found dead in a bathtub in 1988 at the age of 37; an autopsy revealed she died of a heart attack caused by acute pulmonary edema.
Jackie Kennedy died in 1994 of lymphoma, which was discovered during a hospital visit after she fell from a horse. Michael LeMoyne Kenned, the son of Robert F. Kennedy, died in a skiing accident after crashing into a tree in Colorado in 1997.
In 1999, Jackie and JFK’s son John F. Kennedy Jr died along with his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette when the plane he was piloting crashed near Martha’s Vineyard, as is depicted in the recent Disney+ series, Love Story.
Following this tragedy, there was a stretch of time when the family seemed free from the curse. However, in 2011, Kara Anne Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s daughter, had a heart attack at a health club in Washington DC. The following year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s wife Mary Richardson Kennedy died by suicide at her home in New York.
In 2018, Christopher Kennedy Lawford died of a heart attack at a yoga studio in Vancouver at the age of 63. The following year, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, died of an accidental overdose at the Kennedy Compound in Massachusetts.
In April 2020, Maeve Kennedy McKean and her eight-year-old son Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean disappeared during a short canoe trip in Cheseapeake Bay and their bodies were found later that week.
Last December, John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter and media personality Jack Schlossberg's sister Tatiana Schlossberg died at the age of 35 following complications with acute myeloid leukaemia. After publicly announcing her diagnosis in the New Yorker she wrote, ‘I have added a new tragedy to [my mother’s] life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.’
In 2020, Kyle sustained a severe spinal cord injury, which caused long-term paralysis. The incident led her to become an advocate for other people living with disabilities. On 21 September 2026, she died at home and her death is currently under investigation.
She is survived by her two sons, Conor, 12, and Declan, 10, her mother, her brother Michael, her sister Rory and her nieces and nephews, McKie, Quinn, Jack and Caleb. Kyle's daughter Josie, Conor's twin, died a few days after she was born.
Nikki Peach is a senior writer at Grazia, working across news, entertainment, features. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things pop culture for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow with equal respect).