In a surprising turn of events, a source close to Kristin Cabot, the HR Executive who was at the center of an affair scandal, has claimed that Cabot’s then husband Andrew was also at the same concert with a date of his own according to a report by People Magazine. Although, it was initially reported that Andrew Cabot was on a trip to Japan during this viral incident, new details suggest otherwise.
For those who have been living under a rock, during a Coldplay concert in July, Kristin Cabot head of Human Resources at Astronomer and Andy Byron the CEO were caught in an intimate embrace on the Gillette stadium kiss cam as the camera panned towards them. The pair jumped apart in an embarrassed panic, attempting to hide their faces as Coldplay frontman Chris Martin jokingly remarked, “Oh what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”
The aftermath of the incident
Within 24 hours of the incident, the video went viral as internet detectives attempted to uncover their identities, finally pinning them down as employees of the company Astronomer and discovering that they were both married. For weeks, the internet was in an uproar and memes were seen on every social media platform. The pair had to ultimately step down from their positions with Astronomer citing a breach of corporate conduct. The personal lives of Kristin and Andy came under severe scrutiny, with netizens going as far as to hound Byron’s wife on Facebook. She eventually filed for divorce.
Watch the video here:
A grey situation
It has now emerged that Kristin Cabot was already undertaking divorce proceedings against her soon-to-be ex-husband at the time and thus did not feel comfortable commenting on the situation.
“(Kristin) has felt like she can’t speak out as people in the middle of a divorce can’t say anything public. 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 source close to Kristin told People magazine that, “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.”
They went on to further clear up the air about Kristin being labelled a home-wrecker. “Kristin and Andy [Byron] had an excellent working relationship, a great friendship. There was no affair,” the source told People.
“It was inappropriate to be hugging your boss at a concert, and she accepts full responsibility for it,” the source said. “But the scandal, the downfall, the loss of the job — all of that is unfair.”
According to the same source, Kristin was hounded by people in real life as well, with people filming and laughing at her as she picked her son up from school. She was sent 900 death threats on her social media accounts within the first three days of the incident and followed by paparazzi everywhere she went.
The incident revealed the darker side of social media as two private citizens were hounded for their personal lives and it reminds us of the power of the internet – whether it is used for the greater good or the worse. This moment is bound to follow both Byron and Cabot for a long time to come, for as they say, “The internet is forever.”
“These are real people and real families,” the source said. “The way people have taken a lot of enjoyment at their expense, it’s hard to see.”