Model, author, entrepreneur and health guru: when it comes to work, MIRANDA KERR doesn’t take it easy. Taking a trip through LA, she talks to JENNIFER DICKINSON about her precious off-duty days and where she feels happiest.
Miranda Kerr is driving down the freeway, powering past the other vehicles, leaving for dust drivers who are entirely unaware they are on the tail of one of the world’s highest-earning models. If it wasn’t for the green juice balanced between us, and the fact that the steely blue eyes fixed on the road have looked out at me from countless magazine covers, billboards and paparazzi photographs, I might have trouble believing it myself.
The good news, given that we are conducting this interview at speed and on roads that Kerr is admittedly unfamiliar with, is that the 31-year-old is an expert behind the wheel. She began driving at the age of five, on her family’s farm in Gunnedah, Australia. “Just on a little Peewee 50 bike, going round my grandparents’ barn,” says Kerr. “[Driving] is such a good feeling – a sense of freedom.” Did she revel in the exhilaration? “No, I have always been quite cautious. I wasn’t wild or anything. It was about having the wind in my face.”
Wild, Kerr certainly is not. For someone who started her career at the age of 14, growing up in front of a worldwide lens, there are no stories of debauchery in her wake. Bar her recent admission to British GQ that she had joined the mile high club – and really, traveling as much as she does, she’d probably be celibate if she hadn’t – you are more likely to hear her expounding about her latest organic superfood discovery than gossiping about the events of last night.
Though she is currently mid-juice cleanse, the trend for mindful eating is no infatuation for Kerr – healthy eating has always been a passion. “I grew up learning the benefits first-hand from my grandmother,” she says. “She had a vegetable patch at the back of her house and she would teach me how to cook – all very simple but wholesome. Learning the benefits of eating organic food and the nutrient value was ingrained into me, then it was something that I wanted to learn more about because for my job I need to feel my best so that I can give my best.”
In fact, Kerr nearly postponed her modeling career to study nutrition, and is now a certified health practitioner, which has been key in founding her skincare line, KORA Organics. So passionate is she about the range that for her it entirely overshadows her more famous endeavors. “From my first photoshoot at 14, I never saw myself as a model,” she insists. “If someone asks me what I do, I say, ‘I have my own skincare line.’ I don’t define myself as a model.”
Which isn’t to suggest that Kerr doesn’t enjoy the job at hand. “I like being able to find different aspects of myself and expressing them through a picture,” she says. “It’s fun. I might as well do it while I can. It’s not going to last forever.”
And just as with everything she does, Kerr is in full control of her modeling performance. On today’s shoot, she joined photographer Chris Colls and I at the monitor to give her opinion. Is that usual for her? “When I’m on a photoshoot I’m involved with every part of it. If I look at the monitor now, after so many years of doing this, I can be like, ‘Oh, if I move my leg a little bit that way it’s going to make the picture look a lot better.’”
There’s an interesting contrast in Kerr. She’s bohemian in spirit, describing at length her belief that “every thought you think is powerful and we have a conscious choice every day to change our thoughts and therefore change our reality and therefore create a happier existence”. She tries to seek out a bit of nature wherever she goes: “Even in New York I go to Central Park, take my shoes off and put my feet in the grass.”
But she’s also supremely in control, both on set and in the boardroom in her role as Managing Director of KORA. She doesn’t know the meaning of ‘hands off’: from petitioning the experts in her organic lab to incorporate a new ingredient she has researched, to handing out her email address to women with skin conditions so they can let her know what effect the products have. “I really like the mental stimulation that I get from KORA, making executive decisions,” shrugs Kerr, smoothly switching lanes. “I’m very driven. I don’t ever feel stressed; I feel calm when I’m multi-tasking.” How else would she describe herself? “I’m heart-centered. I always look for the best in every situation, no matter what it is. Even if it’s something that’s sad, upsetting ordisappointing at the time, I think, ‘There’s a reason for this.’”
Her split last year from husband Orlando Bloom, the father of her three-year-old son, Flynn, would certainly qualify as a sad time, though the former couple appear to be on impressively good terms, with Bloom explaining that they will always be “family”.
“We all have bad days and negative emotions,” says Kerr now. “But I’ve realized it’s important to sit with it and let it pass, and if it doesn’t pass, choose a thought that will help it pass. Focus on what it is that you’re grateful for. Having perspective is key.”
And there are plenty of joyful moments to dispel the bad. “I feel happiest when I’m with my son at the beach or the park, and we get to enjoy ourselves without paparazzi. Privacy is the most important thing, especially being a mother; when I have an off-duty day, it’s challenging if there are photographers around. It becomes a circus and I don’t want that for Flynn. If I’m on my way to work and they get a photo, it’s fine. But if somebody wants to have a day off… Can you imagine being a builder and having to build on your day off? I get my photo taken for a living, and when I have a day off, they’re still taking photos. I have perspective about it, but it’s just nice to have little moments when they don’t intrude.”
Kerr collected a few such moments on a recent trip to Australia with Flynn, where she rented a house with her parents and grandparents. With trips home less and less frequent, Kerr enjoyed the opportunity to see her son bond with his great-grandparents, whom she spent a lot of time with as a child; her mother gave birth aged 18 and spent much of the model’s childhood working. The two are in a good place now, says Kerr, who nonetheless describes herself as a daddy’s girl. “My dad said to me when I was young, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff’. All of it – the good stuff, the bad stuff, the positive stuff, the negative stuff – makes you who you are and it’s good to embrace all of it. Don’t feel resistant to any of it, because it’s all part of a journey. And the journey is the fun part.”
As we drive along the LA freeway, chasing the sun to the horizon, it’s time to start enjoying the ride.
Her face is a joke on this cover.
