Kristin Cabot, the HR exec at the center of last year’s Coldplay kiss cam scandal, is headlining a crisis communications conference that’s being held later this year.
Cabot will be seated on the panel “Taking back the narrative” at the PRWeek Crisis Comms Conference in Washington, D.C., on April 16, where individual tickets start at $875 per person.
“While attending a Coldplay concert in July and unwittingly appearing on the kiss-cam for a few seconds, Kristin Cabot’s life blew up in an instant,” the description of the keynote presentation reads. “From the outside, it was an amusing, if unflattering meme; but for her, everything changed that day.
It continues: “Cabot experienced firsthand 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.”
In July last year, Cabot told The New York Times that following the scandal the meme had left her “unemployable.” She described being called every sexist trope—a homewrecker, a slut—by keyboard warriors, having her number doxxed and flooded 500 times a day, and her physical appearance scrutinized and torn apart by strangers online. While the other party in the scandal was also dragged online, much of the worst criticism has fallen on Cabot.
Cabot will be joined on the 35-minute panel by journalist and communications professional Dini von Mueffling, who Cabot employed as her PR representative in the aftermath of the scandal alongside PRWeek Senior Reporter Jess Ruderman. The panel will unpack “the strategy – both immediate and long-term – that has helped Cabot take control of her narrative and rewrite her story.”
Thrust into the national spotlight last summer (for those who spent those months living under a rock), Cabot is the former head of human relations at the tech company Astronomer. While attending a Coldplay concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts last in July, Cabot was caught in a 16‑second viral clip embracing the company’s CEO Andy Byron.
“Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy,” Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said as the jumbotron panned on to the pair. At the time Byron was married, while Cabot was separated.
Before those details were able to come to light, however, Cabot and Byron had made headlines worldwide, inspiring countless memes and mocked even by their own company. Both Cabot and Byron resigned from Astronomer not long after.
Cabot said in the Times interview: “I want my kids to know that you can make mistakes, and you can really screw up. But you don’t have to be threatened to be killed for them.”