The Victoria’s Secret Angel Who Wiped Out $550 Million in Medical Debt for 261,000 Californians After Being Inspired by Her Sick Mom
Miranda Kerr and her husband Evan Spiegel just erased roughly $550 million in medical debt for more than 261,000 people across California. Letters notifying recipients start arriving in mid-July. There’s no application, no repayment, no catch.
“One of the reasons we wanted to share this directly is because if you happen to receive a letter in the mail saying your medical debt has been forgiven, we want you to know it’s real,” Kerr said.
She framed the gift around her own family. “When someone you love is sick, all you want to do is focus on helping them get better,” she said. “That’s why we wanted to support this effort and help relieve medical debt, so families can focus on caring for their loved ones and really supporting their healing.”
That instinct traces back to her mother. Kerr founded KORA Organics in 2009 after her mom was diagnosed with tumors on her spleen, an experience she’s said pushed her toward clean wellness and giving back. The medical debt gift is the same impulse, scaled up.
Here’s how the math actually works. The donation went through Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that buys distressed medical debt in bulk for roughly a penny on the dollar. That means a cash donation in the low millions can wipe out hundreds of millions in face-value debt. The leverage is real, the model is public, and for the 261,000 Californians getting those letters, the debt is genuinely gone.
This isn’t a one-off for Kerr and Spiegel. In 2022, they paid off the entire student debt of the graduating class at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, about 285 students. It was the largest single gift in the school’s history. They spoke at commencement and received honorary doctorates.
Their Spiegel Family Fund has also backed Stockton Scholars, Stanford’s Black Community Services Center, Code.org, the Equal Justice Initiative, and a range of LA housing groups working on homelessness. On a 2022 trip to Australia, they quietly donated hundreds of thousands to local causes in the Hunter Region, including a reported $350,000 to the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network.
Kerr also sits on the board of Baby2Baby, the nonprofit that distributes diapers, formula, and clothing to families in crisis across the US. KORA Organics donates 50% of its International Women’s Day sales to Harvest Home and The Royal Women’s Hospital in Australia.
The pattern across all of it is the same: high-leverage models when they exist, direct essentials when they don’t, and a lot of the giving done quietly.
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