A HR boss caught on Coldplay’s kisscam in a viral 16-second clip has spoken publicly for the first time.
Kristin Cabot and ex-Astronomer CEO Andy Byron were caught in an intimate embrace at a Coldplay concert in Boston on July 16. But they quickly separated and tried to hide when they realized they had been broadcast on the kiss cam.
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Cabot, 53, stayed silent for months but has finally addressed the now-viral incident publicly, claiming it was a one-time, alcohol-fueled mistake.
She recalled the moment Coldplay frontman Chris Martin focused the stadium camera on her and Andy Byron, then joked: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”
Cabot told The Times: “Everything just flashed before my eyes.”
She explained the embrace was the first time she and Byron had been physically affectionate and that both were amicably separated from their partners.
“I could have been struck by lightning, I could have won the lottery, or this could have happened,” Cabot said.
“But I’m not some celebrity, I’m just a mom from New Hampshire.”
At the time, Cabot was Astronomer’s head of HR and Byron was the company’s CEO.
She had joined the start-up in November after being headhunted for her experience at major advertising firms.
Cabot described Byron as a supportive boss who ensured women “had a seat at the table”, adding: “It was the first company in the male-dominated professions I’d worked in where I felt my gender was not an issue.”
About a month before the concert, Cabot said, they told each other they had split from their partners.
Over time, she said that support turned into what she called “a big happy crush”.
On the night of the concert, Cabot believed she was anonymous among tens of thousands of fans.
“We were sitting in the back of the stadium … in the pitch black just feeling totally anonymous,” she said.
“So suddenly I’m just seeing us on screen.”
Her first thoughts were of her estranged husband, Andrew, who she later learned was also at the concert.
She said: “My immediate reaction was, ‘Holy s***, Andrew’s here’.”
“Then a beat later my mind turns to, ‘Oh God, Andy’s my effing boss’.”
Cabot and Byron left the stadium quickly and agreed to alert the Astronomer’s board.
At 4 am the next day, Cabot said her husband sent her a screenshot of the clip with the message: “I think you should know this is out there.”
The executive said the backlash fell disproportionately on her, adding: “I became a meme, I was the most maligned HR manager in HR history.”
She also ejected accusations that she was a “gold-digger” or had “slept my way to the top”.Astronomer launched an internal investigation, with Byron resigning within days.
The company later said it found no evidence of an affair but said leadership standards had not been met.
Cabot stepped down soon after, saying: “There was a lot of noise around me not taking accountability, but what actually happened is the board said, ‘Please stay’, and I said, ‘How?’”
She says that without the online pile-on, she could have apologised and kept her job.
Instead, she retreated to an Airbnb, saying she was in “too dark a place” to parent her children, and has since filed for divorce from her husband.
