While attending a Coldplay show at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts in July, Cabot and Byron, Astronomer’s then-CEO, were featured on the band’s nightly “kiss cam.” Cabot, with Byron’s arms wrapped around her, immediately tried to get away from the camera. Quickly, Byron followed suit, crouching out of frame. On stage, Chris Martin joked that the couple were either “having an affair or just very shy.” The clip became a social media sensation, collecting over a 100 million views in 72 hours. Cabot and Byron were the talk of the internet, though Cabot thinks she was made out to be “a punchline and a target.” In an interview with The Times (U.K.), Cabot said she had a “big happy crush” on Byron before the concert. The paper also reported that both of them had already separated from their spouses before that night. “I don’t think my separation would have come as a surprise to him, but his definitely did for me,” Cabot said. “To have someone else going through it at the exact same time that you can talk to was an amazing support.”
Cabot told NYT that her sudden virality resulted in being called a “slut,” “gold digger,” and “homewrecker” online and in public. She was doxxed and received death threats, and paparazzi even showed up to her house. At a gas pump, she recalled, someone said to her, “You don’t even deserve to breathe the same air that I breathe.”
In the days after the incident, Cabot said that she was not in a sexual relationship with Byron. The kiss cam caught them right after their first (and only) kiss. “I was so embarrassed and so horrified,” she said. “I’m the head of HR and he’s the CEO. It’s, like, so cliché and so bad… We both just sat there with our heads in our hands, like, ‘What just happened?'” They made plans to inform the Astronomer board of directors. Soon, TikTok and X were engulfed by the clip and the jokes it produced. Byron stepped down from his position and, after an internal investigation, Astronomer allowed Cabot to return to her role. She declined and submitted her resignation, explaining: “I could not imagine how I could stand up as HR chief when I was a laughingstock.” She and her second husband Andrew (who was also at the Coldplay concert on a date) have since filed for divorce and she has had limited contact with Byron.
In a report by PEOPLE, a source confirmed that “Kristin and Andy had an excellent working relationship, a great friendship. There was no affair. It was inappropriate to be hugging your boss at a concert, and she accepts full responsibility for it. But the scandal, the downfall, the loss of the job—all of that is unfair. These are real people and real families. The way people have taken a lot of enjoyment at their expense, it’s hard to see.”
