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Kristin Cabot, the Astronomer executive who resigned after she was exposed for having an affair with her boss when shown on a kiss-cam at a Coldplay concert last July, shifted blame in a new interview on Oprah Winfrey's podcast released on Tuesday (March 18).
Cabot, 53, claimed that former CEO Andy Byron, 51, lied about his marriage status, having her believe he was in the process of separating from his wife when they were seen canoodling at the concert and claimed social media "profited" from her pain.
“He wasn’t the person he represented himself to be, to me — and lying is a non-negotiable for me,” Cabot said. “There was a big miss on honesty and integrity.”
Cabot, herself, was married but in the process of getting a divorce when the two were captured at the concert in the now-viral clip and said she "ended communication" with Byron last fall.
“I wanna be really careful, because the world spoke for me and on my behalf, and I don’t wanna do that to somebody else and their family,” she said when Winfrey asked to be more specific about Byron's "lying."
Cabot also claimed that social media companies such as TikTok "feed off the pain" of viral moments after the video clip of the incident got more than a billion views.
“The more pain someone like me is in, the more money they are going to make. And it fuels it and feeds it. I think there is an accountability there that needs to be looked at," she said.
Cabot initially broken her silence on the incident during an exclusive interview with the New York Times in December.
“I made a bad decision and had a couple of High Noons and danced and acted inappropriately with my boss,” Cabot said of the incident with Byron, who she admitted was her "big happy crush."
“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," she added, claiming the viral incident left her a "meme" and "unemployable."
A viral clip showed Cabot and Byron, who was also married at the time, panicking while being shown on the band's kiss cam. Byron let go immediately of Cabot and ducked behind a barrier, while she buried her face in her hands.
“Oh what either they’re having an affair or they’re very shy” Coldplay frontman Chris Martin joked unknowingly to the crowd in attendance.
Cabot's resignation came days after Byron, who had served as Astronomer's CEO since 2023, resigned from the company on July 19.
"As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding," Astronomer said in a statement shared on its social media accounts. "Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.
"Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted. The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.
"Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI.
"While awareness of our company may have changed overnight, our product and our work for our customers have not.
"We’re continuing to do what we do best: helping our customers with their toughest data and AI problems."
In September, a spokesperson for Cabot's estranged husband, Andrew, confirmed that the couple, who share two children, were living separate lives when the incident took place. The estranged couple wouldn't file for divorce papers until nearly a month after the scandal took place in July, however, “their decision to divorce was already underway prior to that evening," according to the representative.
“Now that the divorce filing is public, Andrew hopes this provides respectful closure to speculation and allows his family the privacy they’ve always valued," the statement reads via PEOPLE. “No further public comment will be made."
Cabot has only held her position for nine months, describing herself as an individual who "wins trust with employees of all levels from CEOs to managers to assistants" on her LinkedIn account via Yahoo!.