Kyle Kennedy, RFK’s Granddaughter, Dead At 42
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On Tuesday, Oct. 20, news of the passing of Kyle Francis Kennedy, one of the granddaughters of the late Robert F. Kennedy, was disclosed to the public.
This was shared approximately one month after her death.
According to her newly released obituary with Burke Funeral Homes in Massachusetts, Kyle, who was 42, “passed away peacefully” on Sept. 21.
The obituary notably summed up her passions, stating:
“Blessed with a formidable intellect, dry wit, and beauty, she will be remembered for her devotion to her children Conor, Josephine, and Declan, and her support for educational reform for disadvantaged children and for people living with disabilities.”
Back in 2020, just one year after she competed in the Boston Marathon, Kyle was paralyzed in an undisclosed incident that resulted in an injury to her spinal cord.
From her paralysis, she “began to advocate for people living with disabilities, including testifying at the Massachusetts state house in a hearing on discrimination in disabled health care,” Kyle’s obituary reads.
In addition to her children, she is also survived by her ex-husband, Liam Kerr; her mother, Victoria Denise Gifford; her brother Michael LeMoyne Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Mary, and their children, McKie and Quinn; and her sister, Rory Gifford Kennedy, and her husband, David, and their children, Jack and Caleb.
Kyle’s father, whom NBC News notes was the sixth child of RFK and Ethel Kennedy, was the late Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, who died at the age 39 following a fatal ski-football injury on Dec. 31, 1997.
She also had a child who died shortly after birth, with Kyle’s obituary stating that the memory of her infant daughter Josie — who was Conor’s twin sister — was something she “held close for the rest of her [days].”
Funeral services for Kyle were held privately.
RELATED: RFK Assassination Files Released For The First Time
Kennedy Family Marked By Tragedy
Kyle Kennedy’s grandfather was Robert F. Kennedy, who served as United States attorney general under his brother, President John F. Kennedy, and was senator to New York and a presidential hopeful prior to his assassination in 1968.
RFK was killed almost five years after the 1963 assassination of JFK, with conspiracies still swirling around the circumstances of both of their deaths to this day.
Upon being sworn in for his second term, President Donald Trump ordered for the declassification of government documents pertaining to the assassinations of both JFK and RFK.
These files were made publicly available through the National Archives.
Two years after Kyle Kennedy’s father died in 1997, John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999.
In more recent years, RFK’s granddaughter Saoirse Roisin Kennedy Hill, age 22, died of an accidental overdose in 2019.
Another granddaughter of RFK, Maeve Kennedy McKean, age 40, died with her eight-year-old son, Gideon, in a case of accidental drowning in 2020.
The death of Kyle Kennedy comes less than a year after JFK’s granddaughter, writer and activist Tatiana Schlossberg, age 35, died.
