Coldplay Kiss Cam Woman Breaks Silence — And She Has a ‘Different Version of This Story’ to Tell

Few viral moments were as far-reaching or internet-breaking in 2025 as the Coldplay kiss cam scandal — but only one person can speak to the life-altering experience of being the woman caught in the center of it all.

That individual is Kristin Cabot, the former Astronomer executive who was caught on the jumbotron cozying up to her then-boss, the company’s now-resigned CEO Andy Byron, during the rock band’s August concert in Boston. And after months of staying out of the public eye — and enduring verbal abuse and threats both online and in person — she’s finally telling her story in a New York Times piece published Thursday (Dec. 18).

“I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” Cabot told the publication. “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,” she continued. “But you don’t have to be threatened to be killed for them.”

In the months since the incident unfolded at Gillette Stadium, the public — which was quick to discover that Cabot worked as an HR executive under Byron, and that both were married to other people at the time — has been quick to brand the pair as adulterous villains. But Cabot, while acknowledging that it was inappropriate to dance the way she did with her boss, explained that there is way more to the story than people realize.

For starters, she and her husband had already separated when she went to the concert with Byron and some friends. Cabot says she had also previously bonded with Byron over the strain in her marriage, as he’d told her he was “going through the same thing.”

Despite developing feelings for Byron, Cabot said she felt she could keep them in check. The Coldplay concert, she says, was the first and only time she and her former boss ever kissed.

“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.’”

When her image flashed on the big screens that are a feature of Coldplay’s Music of the Spheres World Tour, Cabot recalls feeling “embarrassed and so horrified,” immediately retreating with Byron to figure out how to best inform the Astronomer board of their transgression. But when the already difficult moment started going viral on social media, their problems multiplied.

Adding fuel to the fire was Astronomer’s crisis-control strategy of recruiting Gwyneth Paltrow — Coldplay frontman Chris Martin’s ex-wife — to film a tongue-in-cheek video pointedly not addressing the matter head-on. “I’ve been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer,” she said sarcastically in the video. “We’ve been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.”

Martin has also poked fun at what he’s called the “debacle.” But after being doxxed, harassed, labeled a “slut” and sent countless death threats — not to mention feeling like her children might be unsafe — Cabot just wants people to remember that everyone messes up, regardless of whether their mistakes are put on blast to the world.

She wonders, “Can we start a conversation where there might be room for a different version of this story?”