Miranda Kerr Reflects on Losing First Boyfriend in Car Accident When She Was 15

During a recent appearance on the Beautiful Inside by Beauticate podcast, the model opened up about the lessons she learned about life and loss following the death of her boyfriend, Christopher Middlebrook, who died in a car accident when she was 15.

"The thing that got me through it was obviously the love and support that I had from my family," Kerr, 41, recalled. "When I realized I had to kind of go inward and be really grateful for the moments I had with him while we were together, and then realizing the whole fragility of life and how any of us can be taken at any moment."

"That's really what I felt. It just kind of led me to that spot of finding the comfort within and the gratitude of the time we did have together," she continued, adding that Middlebrook's passing also "got [her] really spiritually seeking even on a deeper level."

The mom of four said the tragic loss ultimately "opened up that pathway" for her and led her to the "understanding" of the "fragility of life" and that "being in the moment is the most powerful thing."

Kerr has spoken about Middlebrook's death in the past.

While appearing on the Not Alone podcast last year, the KORA founder opened up about the impact of losing her boyfriend as a teen.

"My boyfriend passed away when I was a teenager. If that hadn't happened I would have been happily married and been a country bumpkin like I was," she recalled.

"The fact he died so suddenly was such a shock to my system because he died in a car accident," Kerr added. "It was a lesson to not take anything for granted in my life."

The former Victoria's Secret model even honored her late boyfriend when she named her first son after Middlebrook, including his first name in the full moniker for her first child, whom she welcomed with then-husband Orlando Bloom in 2011. The couple named their baby boy Flynn Christopher Blanchard Copeland Bloom.

"Chris and I had been dating for two years," she recalled to Australia's The Daily Telegraph, per PEOPLE. "After he died, I wrote him a letter that said I hoped to name my first child after him in some way. I told Orlando, and he was the one who said he'd be happy to do that. Orlando's a good guy."

Kerr and Bloom divorced in 2013, and she moved on with Evan Spiegel. The pair tied the knot in 2017 and share three children: Hart, 6, Miles, 5, and Pierre, 1.