Coldplay kiss cam woman tells her side of the viral scandal

Satan owns a Bernedoodle. A great big fluffy one that likes to sit in Satan’s lap. That’s if by “Satan” you mean Kristin Cabot, aka the woman from the Coldplay kiss cam scandal, who just gave her first interview about the ever-so-brief moment in mid-July that entertained the internet – and trashed her life completely. The video was an instant classic for those attending the concert: “Ohhh, look at these two,” singer Chris Martin said as the band’s kiss cam spotlighted her wrapped in the arms of her C-suite boss. Andy Byron suddenly, awkwardly ducked out of camera range while Cabot turned her back, covered her face and ultimately fled. “Wait, what? Either they’re having an affair,” Martin continued, “or they’re just very shy.” If that didn’t look like two people caught cheating, what would? “I was so embarrassed and so horrified,” Cabot told The New York Times in an interview published on Thursday. “I’m the head of HR and he’s the CEO. It’s, like, so cliché and so bad.” Yes, the CEO was the HR chief’s “plus-one” that night at the concert. Yes, they were on a VIP balcony that felt private. Yes, they both had been drinking tequila. But no, they were not, she said, having an affair. “I was like: ‘I got this. I can have a crush. I can handle it,’” she said of her mindset. When the night began, they hadn’t done anything together worth reporting to the company. They were both separated from their spouses. That night wound up being the only time they ever kissed. And while Byron danced behind her, Cabot told The New York Times, she took his hands and wrapped his arms around her. The moment was captured on video by Grace Springer, a Zillennial who almost discarded the footage after the concert until her friends convinced her it was definitely worth posting on TikTok. She said she did not monetise it. “A part of me feels bad for turning these people’s lives upside down,” Springer said on a UK morning show a few days after the video went viral, “but, play stupid games … win stupid prizes”. The video’s virality was helped by the news media, the algorithms behind social media and the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Whoopi Goldberg and the Philly Phanatic. People made money off kiss cam-themed merchandise. Cabot said she was doxxed, inundated by hate-filled phone calls and emails and called out by strangers on the street. She got 50 or 60 death threats. Her kids accidentally overheard one of the phone calls when Cabot played it on speakerphone for her mom. “They were already in really bad shape, and that’s when the wheels fell off the cart,” the former executive told The New York Times. “Because my kids were afraid that I was going to die and they were going to die.” “It was a full-bore public shaming, imbued with an unhinged and vicious glee that we hadn’t experienced since, well, the last time millions of strangers rallied to the cause of destroying someone’s life – but magnified by the fact that everything and everyone involved was a standard menu item at the Things You Love to Hate buffet,” a Free Press writer said at the time in an article criticising the public’s response. “Adultery. CEOs. HR representatives. Rich people with linen shirts and expensive highlights. Coldplay, for that matter.” For Cabot, it was something more basic. “I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss. And it’s not nothing. And I took accountability and I gave up my career for that. That’s the price I chose to pay,” she told The New York Times. “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.” Both executives wound up resigning – first Byron, then Cabot a few days later. They stayed in touch for a few months as phones rang and TV producers texted and police had to boost patrols around her house, but decided in early September that chatting regularly wasn’t helping either of them. And now Cabot has gone public with her side of the story, with that Bernedoodle, named Burt Reynolds, by her side. She told The New York Times that criticism from women, who have made up all of the in-person incidents and most of the phone calls, has been the worst and made it harder for her to believe that women have been getting held back by men. Not that she’s excusing men’s bad behaviour, but she said the cruelty has come mainly from her own gender. “I think we are holding ourselves back tremendously,” Cabot said, “by cutting each other down.”

Coldplay kiss cam woman tells her side of the viral scandal

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Kristin Cabot shares the fallout, online hate, and life after her viral jumbotron embrace with ex-Astronomer CEO Andy Byron

Kristin Cabot shares the fallout, online hate, and life after her viral jumbotron embrace with ex-Astronomer CEO Andy Byron