Five months after the kiss cam at the Coldplay concert in Boston caught a married tech CEO cozying up to his married head of HR in a moment that went mega-viral, the woman at the center of the mortifying moment is speaking out in a pair of interviews about the “16 seconds that ruined her life.”
The Viral Incident
Back in July, the Coldplay concert was no “paradise” for former Astronomer Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot and then-Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, who were in a suite with friends at the band’s Gillette Stadium show in Foxborough, Massachusetts, when frontman Chris Martin called for the kiss cam.
As the camera panned the crowd, it stopped on the pair who looked quite cozy. Byron was standing behind Cabot with his arms wrapped tightly around her chest as she placed her hands over his. Their smiling expressions quickly turned to panic, however, when they realized they were on the jumbotron.
Byron let go and seemingly dropped to the ground out of view, while Cabot covered her face and appeared to say something to the woman next to her before walking away. Martin, for his part, did not let the awkward moment pass. “Oh, what,” he could be heard asking from the stage. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”
It quickly emerged that it was the latter, as it was discovered that Byron was a married father of two. It later came out that Cabot, who also has two children, was married at the time, and now she is breaking her silence about the incident.
Cabot Speaks Out
The New York Times titled it “The Woman in the Coldplay Concert Kiss Cam Video Is Ready to Talk,” while The Times of London went with “Coldplay kisscam HR boss Kristin Cabot on 16 seconds that ruined her life.” But Cabot recounted a similar story to both publications.
She opened up about how a “couple of High Noons” led her to the now-infamous moment caught on camera and then broadcast to the world via social media. “I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” Cabot told The New York Times. “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. 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.”
Cabot formally filed for divorce from her husband on August 13, a little less than a month after the viral incident, but she said they were separated prior to the concert. She claimed she hinted at her martial woes to Byron in the spring, and he told her he was “going through the same thing.”
Bryon refused to comment for the article and appears to still be married to his wife, but Cabot said the confession “sort of strengthened our connection” and her feelings for her boss “grew fast” from there. Things escalated further at the concert, which she said she attended with friends before meeting up with Byron. Also in attendance? Her estranged husband.
“Some inside part of my brain might have been jumping up and down and waving its arms, saying, ‘Don’t do this,’” Cabot recalled. “I was like: ‘I got this. I can have a crush. I can handle it.’”
But after having a few drinks, Cabot said she and Byron shared their first kiss and then the viral scene unfolded. “It was like someone flipped a switch,” she said. “I’ll never be able to explain it in any articulate or intelligent way.”
Playing the Victim?
While Cabot acknowledged she was “so embarrassed and so horrified,” especially given that she was “the head of HR and he’s the CEO,” she said her life has been turned upside down by the ordeal.
Cabot said she started getting panic attacks the morning after the concert, and the media scrutiny made her “kids were afraid that I was going to die and they were going to die.” She told The New York Times that she was doxxed, which led to hundreds of calls a day from strangers and “50 or 60” death threats.
The framing would suggest that Cabot is a victim in this salacious saga. But is she? On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Glenn Greenwald, host of Rumble’s System Update, to debate the morality of the situation and Cabot’s response to it.
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Greenwald by tuning in to episode 1,216 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Channel (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.