Astronomer, a New York-based tech company, faced an unexpected controversy when its CEO was seen on the KissCam sharing an intimate moment with a woman who was not his spouse during a Coldplay concert. This led to his resignation from the company.
In a move to shift the narrative, Astronomer has brought on actress Gwyneth Paltrow as their new spokesperson. Paltrow, known for her close ties to the band through her 13-year marriage to Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin, announced her new role with the company on X.
This decision comes as Astronomer seeks to redirect attention away from the incident at the concert, where the two executives’ embrace was broadcast across the event’s large screen, bringing unwanted media attention to the company.
CEO Andy Byron and human resource executive Kristin Cabot were caught by surprise when Martin asked the cameras to scan the crowd during a concert earlier this month.
“Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy,” Martin joked when the couple appeared on screen and quickly tried to hide their faces.
In a short video, the “Shakespeare in Love” and “Ironman” star said she had been hired as a “very temporary” spokesperson for Astronomer.
“Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days and they wanted me to answer the most common ones,” Paltrow said, smiling and deftly avoiding mention of the KissCam fuss.
“We’ve been thrilled that so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation,” she said. “We will now be returning to what we do best — delivering game-changing results for our customers.”
When footage from the KissCam first spread online, it wasn’t immediately clear who the couple were. Soon after the company identified the pair, and Byron resigned followed by Cabot. The video clip resulted in a steady stream of memes, parody videos and screenshots of the pair’s shocked faces filling social media feeds.
Online streams of Coldplay’s songs jumped 20% in the days after the video went viral, according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company.
