Chrisann Brennan

Chrisann Brennan (born September 29, 1954) is an American painter. She is also the author of The Bite in the Apple an autobiography about her relationship with Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder.

Family Brennan was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1954, one of four daughters of James Richard Brennan and Virginia Lavern Rickey. Chrisann was named after the flower chrysanthemum. Brennan remained involved with Jobs through his short time at Reed College. She also took art classes at nearby De Anza College.

Jobs became increasingly consumed by his position with Apple, and Brennan considered ending their relationship. In October 1977, Brennan was recruited by Rod Holt to take "a paid apprenticeship designing blueprints for the Apples". Both Holt and Jobs believed that the position would make use of her artistic abilities.

Brennan had just learned that she was pregnant and knew Jobs was the father. It took her a few days to tell him. She said that his face "turned ugly" at the news. According to Brennan, later, at the beginning of her third trimester, Jobs said: "I never wanted to ask that you get an abortion. I just didn't want to do that." Jobs did not attend the birth. He eventually visited after he was contacted by Robert Friedland, their mutual friend and owner of All One Farm.

While distant, Jobs talked with Brennan on a name for the baby. She suggested "Lisa" and says that Jobs was very attached to this name, while he "was also publicly denying paternity". She discovered later that Jobs was preparing to unveil a new kind of computer that he wanted to give a female name. She said that she never gave him permission to use the baby's name for a computer and he hid the plans from her. Jobs worked with his team to come up with the phrase, "Local Integrated System Architecture" as an alternative explanation for the Apple Lisa. (Decades later, however, Jobs told his biographer Walter Isaacson that "obviously, it was named for my daughter" ).

Brennan explored adoption both before and after Lisa's birth but ultimately decided to keep the baby. Once, while she was staying with friends in the Bay Area, Jobs stopped by to see her. Brennan said that during a walk Jobs said to her, "I am really sorry. I'll be back, this thing with Apple will be over when I'm about thirty. I am really, really sorry." Around the same time, she met with Kōbun, who distanced himself. He did not fulfill his promise to help her once the baby was born.

When Lisa was a baby, Jobs continued to deny paternity. He was required to take a DNA paternity test, which confirmed that he was her father. The court required him to give Brennan $385 a month child support and return the money she had received from welfare. Jobs gave her $500 a month when Apple went public, and he became a millionaire.

Brennan was then working as a waitress in Palo Alto. In 1982 she agreed to an interview with Michael Moritz for Time magazine, which was to feature Jobs as its 1982 Person of the Year special (to be published on January 3, 1983)

She believes that her honesty about Jobs led to Time passing him over for "Person of the Year". Instead Time featured the "Machine of the Year: The Computer Moves In". In the issue, Jobs questioned the reliability of the paternity test. (The "probability of paternity for Jobs, Steven ... is 94.1%"). Jobs said that "28% of the male population of the United States could be the father".

Painter During the late 1980s, Brennan decided to finish her formal education and began to study at the California College of Arts and Crafts (where she was able to transfer her units from Foothill College). and Packard Children's Hospital. Brennan stated that painting is "a language for me. Letters are form, and paintings are documents for information. When I mix those two, I'm happy. It gets me out of the normal way, which is what I want to do."

Works Brennan, Chrisann. The Bite in the Apple. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013. The Brennan piece is a sidebar (scroll down the page) of the main article: "The Steve Jobs Nobody Knew".

Representation in other media Brennan was portrayed as a character in films about Jobs. She was played by Gema Zamprogna in Pirates of Silicon Valley, by Ahna O'Reilly in Jobs, and by Katherine Waterston in Steve Jobs.

She is a main character in the opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs.