The internet has been losing its mind over the video of a man and woman caught in the act of adultery on a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert held in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on July 16. A "Kiss Cam", a common feature at stadium games and concerts, scans the audience for romantic couples and then projects their image on the big screen so they can kiss for the crowd. Except this time, the camera landed on Andy Byron, the CEO of Astronomer, an American company that specialises in AI, with his arms around the company’s director of human resources, Kristin Cabot.
To display this content from TikTok, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement.
The problem is that Andy Byron is married to another woman. Caught in the act, the two spring apart and then make embarrassing attempts to hide from the camera. Byron ducks while Cabot covers her face with her hands and then turns her back to the camera.
"Oh, what?” says Chris Martin, Coldplay’s main singer, visibly shocked. And then: “Either they’re having an affair or they are just very shy.”
The video of the scene garnered more than 121 million views on TikTok.
The next day, a supposed apology from Byron, written as the CEO of Astronomer, was posted on X by a person named Peter Enis, allegedly a journalist for the US channel CBS News. The statement reads:
“What was supposed to be a night of music and joy turned into a deeply personal mistake playing out on a very public stage. I want to sincerely apologize to my wife, my family, and the team at Astronomer. You deserve better from me as a partner, as a father, and as a leader."
A fake statement shared by a satirical account
However, this statement is fake.
Ry Walker, Astronomer’s former CEO, took to X to declare that the statement was “super fake”.
"It did originate from a troll account and is indeed fake," Mark Wheeler, Astronomer's senior vice president of marketing, said in a July 18 email to French wire service AFP.
It turns out that the X account belonging to “Peter Enis” is also fake and has since been taken down. The profile does contain a mention indicating that it is a “parody”, suggesting that the content it shares is satirical. The banner of the account is AI-generated - one clue being that the CBS news logo visible on the microphone isn’t written correctly. And there is no one with that name on the CBS News site.
Another fake Andy Byron apology letter also appeared on X on July 17.
One social media user shared what they said was the “real statement” – a screenshot of a post that looked like it was posted on the official Astronomer X account. In it, the CEO admits, in language commonly used in a letter of apology, to being a Coldplay fan and “not just of the first two albums.”
However, this statement is just as fake as the previous one. If you look on Astronomer’s X account, there is no sign of it. Astronomer confirmed to Canadian media outlet TVA Nouvelles that this was not a real statement.
Is Coldplay going to start having ‘camera-free’ sections? Nope, that’s another fake statement
A final fake statement about this situation also went viral – this one attributed to the band. According to a screengrab posted by a social media user, which has since garnered more than 9 million views on X, the group said that starting at their next concert, “camera-free audience sections” would be made available for people and their “sidepieces”.
However, this is also a fake post. There is no such statement on Coldplay’s X account. Moreover, the band told US media outlet Today that the statement was false.
Andy Byron resigned from the position of Astronomer CEO on Saturday, July 19.
"Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met,” said the company in a statement announcing the CEO’s resignation.
English (US) · 