Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and colleague Kristin Cabot at a Coldplay Concert in Boston on the concert Kiss Cam. Picture / Supplied
Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and colleague Kristin Cabot at a Coldplay Concert in Boston on the concert Kiss Cam. Picture / Supplied
The woman at the centre of last year’s Coldplay kiss cam scandal has been announced as a keynote speaker at a crisis communications conference.
The former Astronomer HR executive will take to the stage this April to deliver a 30-minute plenary dubbed, “Kristin Cabot: Taking Back the Narrative”.
Tickets tothe event, hosted by the trade publication PRWeek, are selling for up to $1461.53, according to TMZ.
Cabot will co-present the session with Dini von Mueffling, whose public relations services she engaged following the fallout from the scandal.
“Kristin Cabot’s life ‘blew up’ last July after a fleeting moment at a Coldplay concert became a global obsession,” a promotional social media post read.
“This isn’t just a story; it’s a technical use case in survival,” it continued, promising attendees would learn “the exact PR architecture used to fight back against a 300-billion-view frenzy”.
Cabot gained worldwide infamy after she was caught out in an affair with her boss, former Astronomer chief executive Andy Byron, at a Coldplay concert in Boston.
She was famously seen covering her face and attempting to duck from view as live images of her and Byron, who were married to other people, were beamed on the arena’s Jumbotron during a kiss cam segment.
“Oh, look at these two. You’re all right. You’re okay. Oh, what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” Coldplay frontman Chris Martin was heard saying in the moment.
They both resigned from their jobs within a month following the incident.
Cabot filed for divorce from her husband, Andrew, whom she later revealed was also in attendance at the show.
Kristin Cabot. Photo / LinkedIn
“Cabot experienced first-hand the extremity of public shaming that women have long experienced when in the negative spotlight of the media, one their male counterparts often seem to avoid,” a descriptor of her conference presentation read.
The website advises interested attendees that they will be equipped with the “tactics necessary to pivot at a moment’s notice for unexpected occurrences that are now the norm, not the exception”.
“I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons (hard seltzers) and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” Cabot said in a December New York Times interview.
“And it’s not nothing. I took accountability and I gave up my career for that. That’s the price I chose to pay.”
Social media response to the announcement was not favourable.
One Instagram user asked, “Wtf is wrong with people rewarding this behaviour?”, suggesting the session should be called “How to cheat on your spouse and then cry victim”.
Another asked, “Who has the narrative and who gave it away in the first place?”
