It was the viral moment of the summer that we couldn’t get enough of; the Kiss Cam couple that broke the internet when they were caught cuddling at a Coldplay concert – only to hide when their faces were shown on screen.
Sleuths quickly found out that the pair filmed in the intimate embrace were Kristin Cabot, the then-head of human resources at the technology company Astronomer, and her then-boss – CEO Andy Byron.
The real kicker? They were both married to other people.
Except… new claims suggest that actually, Kristin and her husband Andrew had already amicably separated before the ill-fated concert.
Not only that, Andrew was actually at the fateful Coldplay show at Boston’s Gillette Stadium in July too – and on a date himself.
A source told The Times: “They had been separated and living apart for several weeks. It was amicable. Kristin was in the box with people from work, though it wasn’t a company box, and Andrew was actually there too with a date, with a woman who is now his girlfriend.
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“Kristin wasn’t hiding, she doesn’t know why she ducked. She knew it was inappropriate to behave that way with her boss as the head of HR.”
The insider goes on to add that Kristin and Andy weren’t ‘having an affair’, but felt unable to speak out about their “great friendship” amidst the worldwide backlash.
“It was not that she was caught cheating, it was not some affair,” they continued. “She fully acknowledges [the hug] was inappropriate, but that was the only inappropriate thing she did.”
Kristin reportedly filed for divorce in August, just weeks after the concert.
The scene, which was posted on TikTok and reshared tens of millions of times, resulted in Astronomer announcing Andy had resigned as CEO days after the footage went viral. Kristin also resigned that same month.
Weirdly enough, Chris Martin's ex-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, then appeared as Astronomer's temporary spokesperson in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the viral moment.
In a surreal video, the actress told the camera that she and the company have been “thrilled by how many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.”
Following the concert, Andy’s wife, Megan Kerrigan Byron, removed her surname off her Facebook account before deactivating her page altogether.
Numerous fake statements circulated the internet, with people assuming different identities in order to gain clout.
However, the insider claims that the pair had also already split and were already living apart before the viral moment – so Andy also was not having an affair.
Now, according to the source, Kristin is still unemployed, having retreated from the public eye and avoiding leaving the home in New Hampshire after reportedly receiving death threats.
“The thing is, something like this could happen to anyone, she was just very very unlucky,” the source said.
“She could not believe that this could be such a global story,” they added. “The level of cruelty and vitriol lobbied at her was unfathomable.”
It looks as if the viral moment of the summer is far from over…
Kimberley Bond is a Multiplatform Writer for Harper’s Bazaar, focusing on the arts, culture, careers and lifestyle. She previously worked as a Features Writer for Cosmopolitan UK, and has bylines at The Telegraph, The Independent and British Vogue among countless others.
