In her first interview since the incident, Cabot said that a brief appearance on a stadium video screen last summer ended her career and triggered months of harassment after footage of her embracing her boss, Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, at a Coldplay concert spread widely online.
The viral clip, quickly labeled “coldplaygate,” led to her resignation as head of human resources at Astronomer and subjected her to sustained public shaming, threats, and fear for her family’s safety. “I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” Cabot said. “And it’s not nothing. I took accountability and I gave up my career for that. That’s the price I chose to pay.”
The incident occurred July 16 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where Cabot attended a Coldplay concert with colleagues and friends. During the show, the venue’s “kiss cam” briefly showed Cabot with Byron, his arms wrapped around her. Both tried to duck out of sight as Coldplay frontman Chris Martin joked from the stage that they might be having an “affair.”
Video of the moment spread rapidly across TikTok and other platforms, drawing more than 100 million views within days. Cabot said she became “a punchline and a target” almost overnight.
In interviews, Cabot acknowledged that she had been attracted to Byron before the concert. “I definitely thought he was a good-looking guy and I had that thought of, ‘If I didn’t work here…'” she said.
Both Cabot and Byron were in the midst of marital separations at the time of the concert. “I don’t think my separation would have come as a surprise to him, but his definitely did for me,” Cabot said.
Cabot said she and her second husband, Andrew Cabot, were in what she described as an amicable separation when the concert took place. She expressed concern about her job following the incident: “Then a beat later my mind turns to, ‘Oh God, Andy’s my effing boss,’ this is a bad look.”
As the video circulated, Cabot said the backlash escalated. She was labeled “a slut,” “a homewrecker,” and “a gold digger,” and her appearance was scrutinized. She received doxxing, hundreds of phone calls daily, paparazzi parked outside her home, and death threats.
Although the viral attention eventually faded, Cabot said the consequences persisted. She recalled being recognized weeks later at a gas station, where a stranger told her she was “disgusting” and said, “You don’t even deserve to breathe the same air that I breathe.”
Cabot said her children became fearful of being seen with her in public. “They were afraid that I was going to die and they were going to die,” she said.
Cabot has stated she was not in a sexual relationship with Byron and that the concert was the first and only time they kissed. “I was so embarrassed and so horrified,” she said. “I’m the head of HR and he’s the CEO. It’s, like, so cliché and so bad.”
Byron resigned days later. Astronomer stated that “our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.” After an internal investigation, Cabot said the company asked her to return but she declined and negotiated her resignation.
Cabot has since filed for divorce and said her husband has been “nothing but a gentleman.” She wants understanding rather than absolution. “I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes, and you can really screw up,” she said. “But you don’t have to be threatened to be killed for them.”
