Kristin Cabot knows exactly where everything went wrong. It wasn’t the boardroom, or a late-night Slack message, or even the office Christmas party. It was a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert — and a few seconds of affection that detonated her career in front of more than 100 million strangers.
Cabot, the former head of human resources at tech company Astronomer, has finally broken her silence six months after going viral for being caught in an intimate moment with her boss, CEO Andy Byron, during a July 16 concert. The clip, first posted to TikTok, shows the pair wrapped in each other’s arms — then abruptly springing apart when they realize they’re on the big screen.
“I’m the head of HR and he’s the CEO,” Cabot, 53, told The New York Times. “It’s, like, so cliché and so bad.”
The internet agreed. Within days, the video had racked up tens of millions of views, spawning memes, mockery, and a public reckoning that neither executive could outrun. Both Cabot and Byron eventually resigned from Astronomer. The kiss cam didn’t just catch a moment — it closed the door on two careers.
In her first extensive interview since the incident, Cabot described the immediate aftermath as a mix of humiliation and disbelief.
“I was so embarrassed and so horrified,” she said.
Despite rampant speculation online, Cabot said she and Byron were not romantically involved. She admitted to having “big feelings” for him and a workplace crush, but insisted they were “not an item.” The concert, she said, marked their first and only kiss.
“I didn’t really get too carried away because he’s my boss,” she said.
After the kiss cam moment, the two retreated to the bar, stunned.
“We both just sat there with our heads in our hands,” Cabot recalled. “‘What just happened?’”
At first, they stayed in touch. But by September, they mutually agreed to cut off communication.
“Speaking with each other was going to make it too hard for everyone to move on and heal,” Cabot said.
What followed was far uglier than the memes. Cabot said she began receiving dozens of death threats, some chillingly specific.
“I know you shop at Market Basket and I’m coming for you,” one message read.
Others suggested the sender knew her daily routines. At one point, her children overheard her listening to the messages.
“That’s when the wheels fell off the cart,” she said. “My kids were afraid that I was going to die and they were going to die.”
The public narrative also turned cruel. Cabot said she was accused of sleeping her way to the top — a claim she fiercely rejects. She told the Times she has worked since age 13 and built her career on financial independence, even supporting her family alone after divorcing her first husband in 2018.
“I supported my family entirely on my own,” she said. “I have never been more proud of anything in my entire life.”
Cabot confirmed she was separated from her second husband, Andrew Cabot, at the time of the concert and already in divorce negotiations. His spokesperson previously stated the divorce was underway before the incident.
Still, Cabot does not minimize what happened. She calls it a bad decision — one she has already paid for.
“I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” she said. “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.”
What she cannot accept, she says, is the punishment extending to threats of violence.
“You can make mistakes,” Cabot said of the lesson she hopes her children learn. “You can really screw up. But you don’t have to be threatened to be killed for them.”
One kiss. One camera. One viral moment. And a reminder that in the age of the internet, the fall from grace isn’t just public — it’s permanent, searchable, and merciless.
