“Oh my God, I hurt people. I hurt good people.”
Former HR director of Astronomer Kristin Cabot, who became the star of a viral video from a Coldplay concert this summer, has commented for the first time on the scandal. She gave an interview to the New York Times, where she spoke about the circumstances of the evening that turned her into a target for jokes from around the world, and about the dozens of threats she received afterward.
The TikTok video, featuring a man and a woman embracing at the Coldplay concert on July 16 trying to hide after being caught by the so-called kiss cam, garnered tens of millions of views within just a few hours.
It quickly became known that the video captured married CEO Andy Byron and married HR head Kristin Cabot. Accusations of immorality against both subjects were accompanied by claims of violating professional ethics, and the story transcended social media discussions to become a topic for news broadcasts and analytical pieces in newspapers.
The company Astronomer, which until that moment was little known outside the IT sector, publicly announced an investigation, and Gwyneth Paltrow was invited to help salvage its reputation by recording a satirical video.
As a result, both Andy Byron and Kristin Cabot lost their jobs and became the subjects of memes and parodies, objects of mockery and harassment from around the world.
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53-year-old Cabot had not commented since July. Instead, she was trying to mend her relationships with her two teenage children, her employer, and her husband, Andrew Cabot, from whom she had recently separated and was negotiating property division.
In the NYT interview, the woman shared that at the initial stage, she thought only about one thing: “Oh my God, I hurt people. I hurt good people.”
Immediately after the scandal, her personal information was leaked, and for several weeks, Cabot received hundreds of calls a day. Paparazzi set up camp across from her house, and cars slowly drove through her neighborhood “like a parade.”
Public attention had long since shifted to other scandals, but Kristin Cabot still regularly faces the consequences of “Coldplay-gate.” Shortly before Thanksgiving, a woman recognized her at a gas station and called Cabot “disgusting.” “Adulterers are the lowest form of humanity. You don’t even deserve to breathe the same air as I do,” Cabot recounts her words.
Shortly before that Coldplay concert, Cabot decided to separate from her husband and just wanted to relax with friends that evening. She invited Byron to join, who, when she mentioned her divorce, said he was “going through the same thing” (the former CEO of Astronomer did not comment to journalists). Cabot emphasizes that she was a little in love with Byron, but they did not have an affair.
During the concert, they had a few cocktails and gradually began to “act like a couple” and even kissed.
“I will never be able to explain it clearly or meaningfully,” Cabot says about what she felt when she saw herself on the big screen. What had seemed like joy just a moment ago turned into horror. Cabot covered her face with her hands and broke free from Byron's embrace. Byron ducked down.
Around 4 a.m., contemplating how she would report the incident to the board of directors, Cabot received a message — it was a screenshot from TikTok.
The next day, she went to see her children, who were with their father in Boston. She wanted to talk to them about what had happened before they heard about it elsewhere. “They, of course, knew who Andy was, and I said, ‘We got really caught up in the moment, and now it’s on social media.’” Her 14-year-old daughter burst into tears.
After the scandal, Cabot spent many days not leaving her room. She began receiving threats — about 50-60 such messages. One of them was accidentally overheard by her children. “My kids were afraid that I would die and that they would die,” Cabot told the NYT. All family members became afraid of public places and social events.
Once, she and her daughter went to a local pool, and a woman began taking their pictures. Tears welled up in her daughter’s eyes, and she began pleading, “Please, can we just leave?” Cabot recalls. On another occasion, when she was picking up her son from work, several women approached her car and stated that they didn’t understand how she could show her face in public.
“I made a wrong decision, had a couple of High Noon cocktails, danced, and behaved inappropriately with my boss. And it’s not trivial. I took responsibility and sacrificed my career for it. That’s the price I decided to pay,” she says. “I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes, and you can really mess up. But you shouldn’t be threatened and afraid for your life because of it.”
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