Lisa Brennan-Jobs writes on her relationship with Laurene Powell-Jobs

In a new book, Lisa
Brennan-Jobs describes her troubled relationship with her father,
Apple founder Steve Jobs, left, and her stepmother, Laurene
Powell-Jobs.
Alexandra Wyman/Getty
Images

• In her new autobiography, Lisa Brennan-Jobs describes
  her fraught relationship with her father, Apple founder Steve
  Jobs, and stepmother, Laurene Powell-Jobs.
• Jobs’ poor treatment of his first child, particularly
  during her early years, has been widely reported in the
  past.
• But Brennan-Jobs adds new details about her teenage
  years and her interactions with her stepmother.
• In one searing story, she recounts how her stepmother
  confessed that she and Jobs were “cold people.”

It’s long been known that Apple founder Steve Jobs was often a
poor father to his eldest child, Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

In the years since he died, it’s also been hinted that she didn’t
have a great relationship with Laurene Powell-Jobs, Jobs’ wife
and her stepmother. But Brennan-Jobs’ new autobiography offers
some new color on her interactions with her stepmother in one
telling vignette that’s recounted in
The New York Times’ profile of her on Thursday.

Although she spent her childhood with her mother, Chrisann
Brennan, Brennan-Jobs went to live with father and stepmother in
the 1990s when she was in high school. As Brennan-Jobs recounts
in her biography, it was a difficult period for her. When she got
involved in clubs and other activities in high school, Jobs
admonished her for not spending more time with the family. He
insisted she watch — because it was a “family moment” — while he
touched his wife sexually and moaned and undulated theatrically
in front of her.

But that wasn’t all. At one point when she was a teenager,
Brennan-Jobs went to a therapy session with her father and
stepmother. During the session, she told the therapist she felt
lonely and had been wanting her parents to tell her goodnight in
the evenings. 

Powell-Jobs response: “We’re just cold people.”

In a joint statement to The Times, Powell-Jobs, her children and
Jobs’ sister Mona Simpson questioned Brennan-Jobs’ overall
account of her relationship with Jobs and her family, but did not
directly dispute any of her individual stories.

“Lisa is part of our family, so it was with sadness that we read
her book, which differs dramatically from our memories of those
times,” they said. 

They continued: “It was a great comfort to Steve to have Lisa
home with all of us during the last days of his life, and we are
all grateful for the years we spent together as a family.”