Andrew Hornery
Private Sydney
Sydney Morning Herald
JULY 7 2017
While Miranda Kerr’s silence on her “romance” with Malaysian billionaire Jho Low, which last week resulted in her handing over $11 million worth of sparkly jewels from her Los Angeles safe deposit box to US government agents, has been deafening, PS has managed to unearth a few more details about the model and the moneybags’ seemingly unlikely connection.
Among the jewels Kerr handed over, according to The Wall Street Journal, was a 11.72 carat heart-shaped diamond pendant, a Valentine’s Day gift in 2014 from former “boyfriend” and Malaysian financier Low.
PS can reveal that later that year, in August, Kerr and her Californian-based agent Kristal Fox, enjoyed Low’s hospitality aboard his $250 million superyacht Equanimity while it was bobbing off the idyllic coastline of Corfu.
Fresh from splitting with her husband Orlando Bloom, Kerr was spotted in Corfu at the time and even made the local press, but it was her host who is raising eyebrows three years later as the central figure in a corruption scandal that has engulfed Malaysia’s powerful elite.
Fox and Kerr appear to have enjoyed a spot of superyacht-swapping back in 2014, being choppered from one mega pleasure craft to another, Fox even uploading a shot of herself on social media, champagne in hand, departing from Equanimity following her stay aboard with Kerr.
About the same time, Kerr was also a guest aboard James Packer’s Arctic P, and PS was told back then she was attempting to drum up investment in her skin care range with Packer, whom she later described as a good friend, apparently offering her business advice.
Kerr’s US spokesman Mark Fabiani did not respond to PS’ queries about the Corfu trip. Last week he told this column: “From the start of the inquiry, Miranda Kerr co-operated fully and pledged to turn over the gifts of jewellery to the government.”
Kerr’s sparkling jewels lost a little lustre after they were identified in civil forfeiture lawsuits filed by the US Justice Department pursuing assets allegedly bought with money misappropriated from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd.
The Equanimity with its gold-plated interiors was also among the items to be seized during the US Justice Department investigation.