Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed a previously unreported detail surrounding the 2019 death of his niece Saoirse Kennedy Hill, saying she died from an accidental fentanyl overdose at just 22 years old.
Kennedy disclosed the information Friday while sharing an emotional social media tribute marking seven years since his niece’s death, before apparently deleting the post shortly afterward.
“Remembering my beloved niece Saorsie [sic] Kennedy Hill, a luminous soul who died 7 years ago this week of an accidental fentanyl overdose,” Kennedy wrote, according to the Daily Mail.
The revelation provides a new account of what caused Saoirse’s fatal overdose in August 2019.
Reports at the time said toxicology testing detected several substances in her system, including methadone, fluoxetine, norfluoxetine, diazepam, nordiazepam and alcohol.
Kennedy’s Friday statement specifically identifying fentanyl as the cause of the accidental overdose had not previously been publicly reported, according to the Daily Mail.
It was not immediately clear why Kennedy removed the tribute after posting it to his millions of Instagram followers.
The Daily Mail said it contacted the Department of Health and Human Services for additional comment regarding Kennedy’s disclosure.
Kennedy accompanied his tribute with several photographs of Saoirse throughout her life, including childhood pictures and images from family vacations.
Saoirse was the granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, the former U.S. attorney general and presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1968.
She was the daughter of Courtney Kennedy Hill and Paul Michael Hill.
Saoirse was found unresponsive at the Kennedy family’s compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on Aug. 2, 2019.
Numerous relatives were reportedly at the property at the time, including her grandmother Ethel Kennedy, who was 91.
Emergency responders rushed Saoirse to Cape Cod Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
Her death devastated one of America’s most prominent political families.
“The world is a little less beautiful today,” Ethel said following her granddaughter’s death.
Before her death, Saoirse had publicly discussed struggles with depression and anxiety.
While attending Deerfield Academy, she wrote about those experiences in a 2016 article for the school’s student newspaper.
“My depression took root in the beginning of my middle school years and will be with me for the rest of my life,” Saoirse wrote at the time.
She also described experiencing periods of profound sadness, comparing the feeling to having “a heavy boulder on my chest.”
Her death became another tragedy associated with a family whose history has been marked by a series of assassinations, accidents, illnesses and premature deaths.
President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, while his brother Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot in Los Angeles less than five years later during his presidential campaign.
Numerous other members of the extended Kennedy family have died in plane crashes, overdoses and other tragedies over the ensuing decades, giving rise to the popular phrase “Kennedy curse.”
The family suffered another loss last year when Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of President Kennedy and daughter of Caroline Kennedy, died from cancer at 35.
RFK Jr.’s latest tribute, however, centered specifically on remembering Saoirse seven years after her death.
His brief reference to fentanyl simultaneously revealed a significant detail about the tragedy that had apparently remained outside the public record for years.
Kennedy did not elaborate in the post about the circumstances surrounding the fentanyl exposure or explain how it related to the substances previously reported in toxicology findings.
Seven years after Saoirse’s death shocked the Kennedy family, her uncle’s since-deleted tribute has now provided a new account of what he says caused the 22-year-old’s fatal overdose.
