Kristin Cabot is finally speaking out months after her viral Coldplay kiss cam moment cost her job and ignited an internet firestorm.
In an interview with The New York Times published Thursday, December 18, the former Astronomer HR executive reflected on the night she and then-CEO Andy Byron were caught in an intimate embrace during the band’s Boston concert in July.
Cabot, 53, told the paper she agonised over whether to go public but ultimately felt compelled to explain what happened. She insisted she and Byron were not in a sexual relationship and said they had never kissed before that night.
“I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” she said, adding that “it’s not nothing.”
Cabot said she has accepted the consequences, even if they were devastating. “That’s the price I chose to pay,” she explained, noting that she “gave up [her] career” over the incident. “I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes, and you can really screw up, but you don’t have to be threatened to be killed for them.”
She told the Times she and Byron “clicked, stylistically” when she interviewed for her role in 2024, bonding later over both “going through” separations. By the time she invited him as her plus-one to the Coldplay concert, she admitted she had a “crush,” though it was not meant to be a date.
On a dopamine high from tequila cocktails and dancing, the pair appeared on the jumbotron, prompting Chris Martin to quip, “Whoa, look at these two.” When Byron ducked away and Cabot hid her face, Martin joked, “Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy.”
“I was so embarrassed and so horrified,” Cabot said. “I’m the head of HR, and he’s the CEO. It’s, like, so cliché and so bad.”
Both were placed on leave following a board investigation. Byron resigned the next day, and Cabot followed shortly after.
