Miranda Kerr on her close relationship with Katy Perry: “I really love and appreciate her”

Miranda and Katy are genuinely close, not just Instagram close, she tells Marie Claire in a new interview.

Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom are no ordinary ex-partners. Shunning the typical narrative that can often follow divorce - one of animosity and one-upmanship between the former couple - the pair have chosen to remain friends in the eight years since they separated.

Largely for the sake of their son Flynn, 10, Miranda and Orlando have not only maintained a strong bond together, but have extended that to include their new respective partners - Evan Spiegel and Katy Perry - too. In a new interview with Marie Claire UK, Miranda Kerr reveals how strong the relationship between the foursome really is - and how much she treasures her closeness to Katy Perry.

“We hang out and enjoy each other’s company. I really love and appreciate Katy and [Orlando] really loves and appreciates Evan, which is great,” Miranda says.

The bond is evidently genuine, extending way past any ‘picture perfect’ front cynics might assume is put on for the benefit of Instagram, or celebrity status. Along with their other children - Miranda Kerr and Snapchat founder Evan share three-year-old Hart, and Myles, who’s almost two, while Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry are parents to one-year-old Daisy Dove - the two couples make a lot of time for each other.

“We go on family holidays together, we have Christmas together. We all like each other’s company and I feel so lucky for that,” Miranda adds. “We said to Flynn, ‘Now you have even more love’. I think he feels very good about that. He knows having two happy parents separated is more important than two unhappy people together,” she tells Marie Claire.

While co-parenting is never easy, Miranda Kerr believes it was the decisions made in the early days of her separation from Orlando that paved the way for such a happy blended family. “From the day we decided to not be together, [Orlando and I] made a commitment to each other to put Flynn’s needs first,” she recalls. “Having that as a guideline was really great. Sometimes what can be annoying is trying to line up schedules, but, at the end of the day, we have so much love and respect for each other as human beings.”

That’s not to say the breakup wasn’t hard. In fact, in the interview Miranda Kerr reveals that it led her into a year-long depression. “When Orlando and I separated, I went through a very dark phase emotionally that hit me out of nowhere,” Miranda shares, adding that it came as a shock “because I’m a naturally happy person.”

The model, business owner and mum-of-three says it was “really hard to get out of that” phase because “there’s no shortcut” you can take to feeling okay. But with time, and the ability to process everything, she began to feel like herself again. “Just like grieving when someone dies, there’s a process and you have to go through those different emotions,” she says.

And with hard times come growth. You get to learn deeper parts of yourself and become even more insightful once you’ve got through it,” Miranda tells Marie Claire, sagely. “But it’s important to ride that wave of emotion and not fight against it... To be gentle and kind to yourself.”

Ultimately, Miranda feels like everything has worked out well in the wake of her relationship breakdown with Orlando Bloom. “Orlando and I are great friends, and I have so much respect and admiration for him as a person and father, but we’re so much better [as] friends than partners,” she shares.

Also in the interview, which you can read in full here, Miranda Kerr talks business - how she successfully grew her own, the very personal reason behind starting it, and throwing herself fully into every project she works on - as well as health, and happiness.

“There’s more to life than worrying,” she tells Marie Claire. “I just want to be the best version of myself – the best partner, the best mother, and do the best I can with what I’m passionate about.”