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Kristin Cabot opens up about tense hours after Coldplay kiss cam night, says she was up till 4 am and beyond
Kristin Cabot says the viral Coldplay kiss cam moment cost her job, triggered harassment and ended contact with Andy Byron months after the concert.
Kristin Cabot, the woman at the centre of the viral Coldplay “kiss cam” controversy, has spoken publicly for the first time, describing the hours after the incident and the fallout that followed. In an interview with The New York Times, Cabot said the moment, later dubbed #coldplaygate, upended her personal and professional life, ultimately costing her job and exposing her to months of online harassment and threats.
Recalling the night of July 16 at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts, Cabot said she and Andy Byron were sitting far from the stage, believing they were anonymous among tens of thousands of concertgoers. “We were just dancing… I’d had a few High Noons,” she told the New York Times, adding that she was “on the top of the world” before the kiss cam caught her with Byron.
But when the jumbotron suddenly showed them together, Cabot’s instinct was to cover her face, while Byron’s was to duck and hide. This moment was caught on camera and later went viral on social media, racking up millions of views within days.
(Also Read: Kristin Cabot's husband Andrew was at the Coldplay concert with his own date: Report)
Aftermath of Coldplay kiss cam incident
Cabot said that her first thought after the incident was of her husband Andrew, from whom she was in the middle of what she described as an “amazingly amicable” separation. “I was worried I would embarrass him,” she said.
But moments later, another concern set in: Byron was her boss. “A beat later my mind turns to, ‘Oh God, Andy’s my effing boss’, this is a bad look. Boston’s not a big town. And while it wasn’t an Astronomer event or anything, there could have been investors or other staff there,” she said.
Cabot said that after the incident, she and Byron left the stadium and took a taxi ride back to their cars. “All I could think about was, ‘Andrew is going to kill me’ and ‘what do we do about our jobs?’” she said.
The pair later drove to her home in Rye, New Hampshire. They then parted ways and later spoke on the phone around midnight for several hours, strategising the wording of their email to the board. Around 4 am, Cabot said that she received a message from her husband, who sent her a screenshot of the viral video with the words, “I think you should know this is out there.”
Cabot said she and Byron stayed in touch briefly to exchange what she described as “crisis management advice,” but have not spoken since.
(Also Read: Kristin Cabot's husband Andrew breaks silence after Coldplay scandal: 'Decision to divorce was...')
Coldplay kiss cam controversy
Notably, the video, which showed Byron with his arms around Cabot before both tried to hide from the camera, amassed more than 100 million views within days. Coldplay frontman Chris Martin even joked from the stage that the pair might be having an "affair".
In the aftermath, Byron resigned from Astronomer, with the company stating that its leaders are expected to uphold high standards of conduct and accountability. Cabot told the Times that although Astronomer later asked her to return to her role following an internal investigation, she declined and instead negotiated her resignation, which was announced on July 24.
“I could not imagine how I could stand up as HR chief when I was a laughingstock,” she said.
Cabot has since filed for divorce from Andrew. She said that the episode turned her into “a punchline and a target” almost overnight, leaving a lasting impact long after the concert.
