Kyle Kennedy Dies: Talk of the "Kennedy Curse" Resurfaces

Kyle Kennedy, a granddaughter of U.S. politician Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, and his wife Ethel, has died. According to an online obituary, she died peacefully at her home in Westwood, Massachusetts, on September 21 at the age of 42. Her death became public on Tuesday, October 20.

The cause of death is still unclear. According to the Westwood town administration, it has yet to be determined. A private funeral has already taken place, according to the newspaper The Guardian.

Father died in 1997 skiing accident

Kyle Kennedy was the daughter of Michael Kennedy, the sixth of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's eleven children, and Victoria Denise Gifford. Gifford's father was football star and sports broadcaster Frank Gifford.

Michael Kennedy died on New Year's Eve 1997 in Aspen. While playing football on skis with other family members, he hit a tree. He was 39 years old; his daughter was 13 at the time.

Kyle Kennedy was born on July 6, 1984, in Washington and grew up mainly in Cohasset, Massachusetts. After studying at Georgetown University, she taught at a school for disadvantaged children through the Teach For America program. She later earned further degrees at Pace University and at Harvard. She worked as an early childhood educator and advocated for education reforms benefiting disadvantaged children.

Advocacy after severe injury

In 2020, Kennedy suffered a severe spinal cord injury that led to permanent paralysis and other health problems. Afterward, she became an advocate for people with disabilities. At the State House, the seat of the Massachusetts legislature, she testified about discrimination in health care. A year before the injury, in 2019, she had run the Boston Marathon in pouring rain, finishing 20 minutes faster than her father once had.

A daughter died a few days after birth. Kennedy is survived by two sons, ages twelve and ten, her mother, and a brother and a sister. Her marriage, entered into in 2012, later ended in divorce.

Kennedy briefly gained national attention in 2012: Her cousin Conor Kennedy reportedly attended her wedding uninvited with his then-girlfriend Taylor Swift. The singer has always denied this. She said she was invited and that the bride even thanked her for coming, Swift said, according to the outlet TMZ.

The so-called Kennedy curse

Under a TMZ post on X, users once again linked the death to the "Kennedy curse." The term has been invoked for decades whenever a member of the family dies young or in dramatic fashion. Ted Kennedy himself spoke publicly of a "terrible curse" after the Chappaquiddick accident in 1969.

Events often attributed to the "curse" include:

• 1944: Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy's oldest brother, dies in a plane explosion during World War II.
• 1948: Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy is killed in a plane crash.
• 1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated; the same year, his son Patrick dies shortly after birth.
• 1968: Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated.
• 1969: Mary Jo Kopechne dies in a car accident involving Ted Kennedy in Chappaquiddick.
• 1984: David Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy, dies of an overdose.
• 1997: Michael Kennedy dies in the skiing accident in Aspen.
• 1999: John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister die in a plane crash.
• 2020: Maeve Kennedy McKean and her son are killed in a canoe accident.
• 2025: Tatiana Schlossberg, a granddaughter of John F. Kennedy, dies of leukemia.

The "curse" is not a supernatural explanation but a media and cultural narrative. Critics point out that large, prominent and risk-taking families statistically experience more publicly noticed tragedies, and that many of the deaths stem from accidents, risky behavior, politics or illness.