Some things in life are hilarious and disconcerting at the same time. Like when the CEO of a major tech firm is caught embracing his mistress, who is the Chief People Officer at his company. And the entire thing was projected onto the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert.
That’s a sentence that seems especially crafted to be a Seinfeldian comedic premise, but it’s real. There is footage of it.
Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was caught on the Jumbotron during a Coldplay concert in Boston in a “Kiss Cam” kind of bit, locked in an affectionate embrace with his company’s Chief People Officer, Kristin Cabot. That would’ve been mildly romantic if they weren’t both reportedly married with kids. The pair immediately tried to dodge out of frame to hide their faces. But it was too late. We had seen everything.
The Coldplay Concert Couple Explained
In a heightening of the comedic premise, Coldplay’s frontman, Chris Martin, acknowledged the couple shying away from the cameras by saying, “either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” It was abundantly obvious to everyone near the couple, on TikTok when the video was shared, and on the wider internet when the video went viral, that it was a case of infidelity.
Seemingly within minutes, everyone in the video was identified. Within 24 hours, all the gossip pages were publishing articles about how Byron had mistreated people at his previous job. The New York Post quickly published an article about how Byron “gushed” about Cabot months before getting caught on camera, immediately making everybody wonder how quickly Cabot rose up the ranks in the company so quickly after all having only joined in November.
Neither Byron nor Cabot has commented publicly, but they don’t have the internet meme machine went into high gear, dissecting the moment from every possible angle within minutes. They’ll just be adding fuel to the fire. It’s impressive, in a frightening kind of way. Internet sleuthing has never been easier, more efficient. You can reveal an identity while lying back on your couch in your underwear.
If Byron and Cabot had just stood still and smiled on a Jumbotron, there’s a good chance no one would have noticed or cared. Instead, they became an impromptu, extremely funny case study in how quickly our modern surveillance tools can expedite your self-destruction.
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