Photo: FreePressJournal
Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the daughter that Apple founder Steve Jobs spent years trying to deny was his, is coming out with her side of the story, with the memoirs “Small Fry,” out in bookstores this September.
By the time Jobs died in 2011, he and Lisa had already patched their relationship. In excerpts released to Vanity Fair, she admits that their reconciliation wasn’t of the kind you see in movies, and it certainly didn’t help erase all those bad memories that piled up through the years.
While Lisa and her mother struggled, Steve Jobs was at the top of his game, making millions off the company he had founded. He wasn’t a generous man, Lisa soon got to find out: he wasn’t generous with his words, with his money, or even with his used cars.
Somehow, growing up, Lisa began believing what her mother had told her, that Jobs was so rich that he would buy a new Porsche convertible every time his old one got a scratch. It was easier for him to get a new one than to have the old one repainted, she believed.
She told this story to all her school friends. At the time, she and Jobs weren’t even that close, but she admits she deceived herself into believing that, if she played a role, her father would automatically play the other, just like she’d seen happen in movies.
“He's famous. He invented the personal computer. He lives in a mansion and drives a Porsche convertible. He buys a new one every time it gets a scratch,” Lisa would tell her friends.
With this idea in mind, one night, Lisa mustered the courage to ask her father to give her his old Porsche once he’s done with it. You’d think someone as loaded as Jobs would concede to this request, but if you did, then you don’t know much about Steve Jobs. As Lisa puts it, he wasn’t exactly the giving kind.
“Can I have it when you're done?” Lisa asked, as they were pulling in at her home.
“‘Can you have what?’ he said. ‘This car. Your Porsche.’ I wondered where he put the extras. I pictured them in a shiny black line at the back of his land. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said in such a sour, biting way that I knew I’d made a mistake. I understood that perhaps it wasn’t true, the myth of the scratch: maybe he didn’t buy new ones.”
“‘You’re not getting anything,’ he said. ‘You understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.’ Did he mean about the car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice hurt - sharp, in my chest,” Lisa writes.
“Small Fry” will be out next month. For what it’s worth, Jobs recognized Lisa as his daughter, and she is now a multi-millionaire after he changed his will to reflect the change in her birth certificate.
While Lisa and her mother struggled, Steve Jobs was at the top of his game, making millions off the company he had founded. He wasn’t a generous man, Lisa soon got to find out: he wasn’t generous with his words, with his money, or even with his used cars.
Somehow, growing up, Lisa began believing what her mother had told her, that Jobs was so rich that he would buy a new Porsche convertible every time his old one got a scratch. It was easier for him to get a new one than to have the old one repainted, she believed.
She told this story to all her school friends. At the time, she and Jobs weren’t even that close, but she admits she deceived herself into believing that, if she played a role, her father would automatically play the other, just like she’d seen happen in movies.
“He's famous. He invented the personal computer. He lives in a mansion and drives a Porsche convertible. He buys a new one every time it gets a scratch,” Lisa would tell her friends.
With this idea in mind, one night, Lisa mustered the courage to ask her father to give her his old Porsche once he’s done with it. You’d think someone as loaded as Jobs would concede to this request, but if you did, then you don’t know much about Steve Jobs. As Lisa puts it, he wasn’t exactly the giving kind.
“Can I have it when you're done?” Lisa asked, as they were pulling in at her home.
“‘Can you have what?’ he said. ‘This car. Your Porsche.’ I wondered where he put the extras. I pictured them in a shiny black line at the back of his land. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said in such a sour, biting way that I knew I’d made a mistake. I understood that perhaps it wasn’t true, the myth of the scratch: maybe he didn’t buy new ones.”
“‘You’re not getting anything,’ he said. ‘You understand? Nothing. You’re getting nothing.’ Did he mean about the car, something else, bigger? I didn’t know. His voice hurt - sharp, in my chest,” Lisa writes.
“Small Fry” will be out next month. For what it’s worth, Jobs recognized Lisa as his daughter, and she is now a multi-millionaire after he changed his will to reflect the change in her birth certificate.
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