Are they having an affair or just shy? The couple caught on Coldplay’s kiss cam

It is a moment of shock and mortification in Massachusetts that has transfixed the internet.

A camera at a Coldplay concert near Boston sweeps the audience and picks out a canoodling couple.

But as they see their image beamed on to the screen the man and woman do not kiss and wave. Instead, their eyes widen in horror and they break apart: she turns and buries her face in her hands, he ducks down to the ground, perhaps willing it to swallow him.

“Oh what,” Chris Martin, Coldplay’s singer, said from the stage. “Either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy.”

Within minutes of the incident on Wednesday at the Gillette stadium in Foxborough, outside Boston, online sleuths were investigating and soon ruled out the second theory.

The man was identified as Andy Byron, the married CEO of Astronomer, a software development company, and the woman was identified as Kristin Cabot, its head of human resources.

The status of their relationship has not been confirmed but glee does not do justice to the speed with which the clip went viral and the schadenfreude it elicited. “Busted!” was a common refrain. “#zerosympathy,” was another.

Byron sits on the board and has been head of Astronomer, which is based in Cincinnati, since 2023. Cabot joined in November 2024 as chief people officer. In a press release that announced her hiring, Byron called her a proven leader. “Kristin’s exceptional leadership and deep expertise in talent management, employee engagement and scaling people strategies will be critical as we continue our rapid trajectory,” he said.

In the same press release Cabot lauded the company. “I was energised in my conversations with Andy and the Astronomer leadership team about the opportunities that exist here,” she said.

In a purported statement from Byron on Thursday the CEO apologised to his family and colleagues. However, the news site TMZ.com cited a company representative who said the statement was fake.

During the concert Chris Martin appeared to reference the Kiss Cam couple, and to anticipate the fallout. “Holy shit,” he told the crowd. “I hope we didn’t do something bad.”