Viral Clip: The Coldplay Kiss Cam Fallout

0:20 Hey everyone, and welcome back to Exposed. Today. I am bringing you one banger of a story, and this is one of those stories that I promise you ninety nine percent of us we've heard it may be made judgment on it, but this is also the type of story that also proves there's always two sides to a story. Now, for this one, I got to set the scene. So it's July sixteenth of twenty twenty five Gillette Stadium. That's the stadium where the New England Patriots play. It was Coldplay on the stage and they are rocking it to fifty thousand fans. Now, amongst this massive crowd where two people Andy Byron, the CEO of a tech company, and Kristin Cabot, they had of human resources for that company and also a direct subordinate to Andy. Now we likely have all seen kiss cams. Typically these are done at major sporting events like basketball, baseball, hockey. The camera scans the crowd and if it focuses on you and your significant other, you kiss and everyone goes crazy and cheers. Well, Kristin and Andy, they were amongst the crowd and they were focused in one but the reaction was unlike something you would ever see. Rather than a quick kiss and a wave to the crowd, Andy, who at the time was embracing Kristin from behind while the song Yellow was playing, he cowers away very quickly, literally out of the camera's view,

1:54 and Kristin she quickly covers her face and she appears to duck down, and it became obvious to the fifty thousand people there, and also obvious to the lead singer of Coldplay, guy by the name of Chris Martin, that something wasn't right. As a matter of fact, he states to the crowd, quote, either they are having an affair or they are extremely shy. Now, ten years ago, maybe that would have been in a little embarrassment. Maybe a stranger caught it on his cell cam and he would show it to a friend, But likely the world would have never known. Ten years ago, this was a TikTok free world. Remember, however, this was July twenty twenty five and TikTok is rolling and everyone is trying to go viral.

2:48 So within an hour this moment was everywhere. It was actually the perfect clip for TikTok. How fast did it move? Well? How about a one hundred million million views in just two days, and it thrust two people into a situation where they would lose their jobs and create a harassment situation, especially the female side of this couple, that you wouldn't believe. So let's get into it, and I'm going to start by telling you a little about Kristin Cabin. Now, Kristen was born in Massachusetts. This was in nineteen seventy three, and she was fifty two years old at the time of this incident. And honestly, she didn't look and still does not look fifty two years old. Very well put together, beautiful, very pretty lady. She was a longtime resident of the Boston area and obviously, prior to this whole kiss cam incident, she wasn't in the public eye in any way, shape or form. She was just a normal human walking the earth and working hard, super smart lady. And what we did know is that she graduated from college in nineteen ninety five and from the early to mid two thousands she was killing it in the advertising and marketing field, working with several large agency. Then in twenty ten, somewhere

4:20 in that timeframe, she transitions more into the human resources side of business, and she really excels throughout the next twelve years. Now, during this time she does get married and she has two children. However, in twenty eighteen, she files for divorce from her first husband. Now that divorce finalizes in twenty twenty two, and that same year she remarried. She actually married a guy by the name of Andrew Cabin and he comes from a very wealthy, well known, super well known family in the Boston area. They are actually in the rum business and that business is known as privateer rum. So after two years of being in this marriage, she joins a company called Astronomer, which at that point was a very promising company. I wouldn't call it a startup. It had been it had been in business quite a while, but it was the tech business and it was still kind of waiting for its boom into the world. Astronomer was a company really wanting to get in the AI space and how that can be harnessed to improve workflow. The company was founded in twenty fifteen, but it was really starting to get its feet underneath itself as of this point, and they needed a really smart, business minded individual to head up their HR department. In Kristin Cabot. She fit the role to a t so

5:53 in November of twenty twenty four, she gets hired on at Astronomer. In her role was what they termed the Chief people Officer, meaning she was the head of HR basically, but they got a cute little term mayor. Now when she interviewed for that job and she was hired, she was actually hired by the CEO of that company, who is indeed Andy Byron. So shortly after being hired by Astronomer, Kristen and her husband Andrew Cabot, they seemed to be getting along. They purchased a two and a half million dollar home in Rye, New Hampshire, and life is good, or so you would think. So now let's talk about the CEO of Astronomer, a guy by the name of Andy Byron, and he was born in Hanover, Massachusetts in nineteen seventy four, but he grew up in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and he apparently had a pretty privileged upbringing. He attended private schools throughout his childhood, and he actually graduated from a private high school which was a boarding school as well, and those are not cheap. That's why I say he likely had a pretty privileged upbringing. So from there he goes to college and Andy was a bit of an athlete.

7:11 He actually played baseball in college. He graduates in nineteen ninety seven from Providence College, this is in Rhode Island, and he got a bachelor's in political science. So in nineteen ninety seven, that's when he enters the tech world, although at this point he was not in the development side of tech. He was more on the sales side of the industry. Moving on to the early two thousands, he gets married to a lady by the name of Megan Kerrigan, and she was a teacher and educator, and they have a few kids. And man, does this guy thrive in the tech world for the next twenty years.

7:52 This guy is just killing it. And in July of twenty twenty three, after leading several tech companies in different areas is he is named the CEO at Astronomer, which is where he would meet and hire Kristin Cabot. Now, by the time Kristen came on board with the company under Andy Byron's leadership, this company was soaring. He had literally brought this company by twenty twenty five to an estimated value of one point three billion with a B dollars and I would love to give you his side of the story, but I can't. He has never spoken about it, either a public statement or otherwise that I've ever been able to come across. So I only have Christen's side of the story to tell you, and it may in fact shock you. So here is what occurred, according to Kristin. So she starts her job as a people officer at Astronomer. This is in November as a set of twenty twenty four, and it's a fast paced environment, very busy, and she will speak with Andy Byron, the CEO.

9:03 She kind of worked almost directly with him two to three times every day regarding the culture inside of Astronomer, very important aspect to business. And they develop a friendship that then develops into feelings for each other, but it was unspoken between the two. So Winner of twenty twenty four moves into Spring of twenty twenty five, and one day they're grabbing lunch together, kind of working through lunch, and Andy Byron notices something just was not right with Kristen. She just seemed kind of down in the dumps. It was just not her normal cheery, upbeat self, and he asked her if anything was wrong and Kristin mentioned that her and her husband were separated and she had never told Andy Byron that before, and she said, look, I'm just going through a lot with this separation, and Andy tells her, Wow, I'm going through the exact same thing, a separation. So they kind of start leaning on each other.

10:08 And what do you think is going to happen at that point? To all my ladies out there listening, You're going through this really tough time a separation, and your friend and your boss who you kind of like but you'd never told him you like him, and vice versa, and you find out he's going through the same thing and he's also separated, and you're confiding in each other. I mean, you can see where this is going to lead. There was already an unspoken spark with these two and it turns into an absolute inferno. Now. According to Christen, Big feelings grew fast, and she said she started imagining a romantic relationship and the possibilities with Andy involving that relationship, and she said Andy was kind of reciprocating everything she was putting out as far as romantic feelings, basically feeling her love tank if you will. Now, nothing physical had occurred yet, it was just that they both kind of knew they were really into each other. So she said, at that point they had a problem. They knew they were attracted to each other. But this was her boss, and Kristin directly reported to Andy, and they had a board of directors, And that type of thing is very frowned upon in any industry, in any job, because if it goes bad, that can be big problems for a major billion dollar company. Also, Kristin was the head of

11:40 h all. No one knew the rules better than Kristin as it relates to workplace relationships. So they have a conversation with each other about their feelings for each other. Now, according to Kristin, before things went any further, they were going to inform the board of them and see if the board could kind of work it out to where she would not have to report directly to Andy. And I know this is where I was like, I don't know, I mean, did you really never touch each other or kiss each other or anything prior to talking to this board.

12:20 But that's her story, you know, That's what she says occurred, that they confess these feelings to each other, but nothing physical until they were to talk to that board, which was going to be quickly now prior to having this meeting with the board, but after having the conversation about five days after, they kind of confess these feelings for each other. Kristen and a few of her friends they are going to a Coldplay concert. Now, she had an extra ticket, and of course, who do you think she's gonna ask to go with her? Andy? She wanted to hang out with him. She was smitting with this guy whatever, and she calls him and she says, hey, you want to get to the Coldplay concert with me and my friends?

13:04 And he says yes. So before the concert starts, she and Andy and her other friends that were going they meet at a steakhouse. They have a great dinner, and from there they head to the concert. Now they're waiting in line to get in this concert and suddenly she gets a text from her daughter, and her daughter says, hey, you'll never guess who's at the concert somewhere. I mean, this is fifty thousand people. But her daughter says, you'll never guess who's there, and she says Dad, which is Kristin's estranged husband. Right they're separated, but he's there, and Kristin kind of goes into panic mode for a second. Now, not because she's doing anything wrong, per se, but she's out there at this concert and her boss's with her, which her a strange husband knew who her boss was, and they had met and talked before, and the last thing she wanted was her sooner to be acts seeing this and something go haywire. Maybe he gets jealous and he goes and tells the board before they've had a chance to tell the board. And she also said that their divorce was going pretty amicably at this time. They were getting along trying to go through this divorce, and she didn't want to screw that up, so she kind of panicked for a second. But she thought the same thing all of us would think, which is, what are the chances that he's actually going to see us among fifty thousand people. So they get in the stadium and

14:37 she's got to calm her nerves a little bit. And she's not a big drinker, but she and Andy they both partake in a few high noons. And if you've ever had a high noon, it can hit you pretty quick. If you've had two or three of them, it can really hit you hard, but she knew that would take the edge off, and it indeed did. And they're having a great time. They're dancing, they're listening to Coldplay, and it was at this point that Annie and Kristin, according to her, they have their first kiss. Now following that, the song Yellow by Coldplay comes on, and this is kind of a ballad if you've never heard that song.

15:17 It's a love song, but not a slow love song, but something if you've got someone there that you're really attracted to and you are falling in love with, as Kristin said she was, this is something that can kind of push you over the edge. And Andy's behind her, He's got his arms wrapped around her. He's kind of swaying with her to that song. And right there on the jumbo tron painting, the audience focuses in right on the two of them, and reactions tell me a lot. Now, Kristen, upon seeing herself and Andy on the jumbo tron, she quickly covers her face with her hands and he's kind of laughing. It's almost like an embarrassment kind of thing.

16:03 When the camera focus in on her and she turns to her friend, and you can actually see her kind of laughing, but it's not the oh shit, I'm in trouble kind of reaction, more like an O. Great, my estranged husband is in the crowd. He's gonna see this, and he's gonna have some sort of reaction I don't like. However, Andy, on the other hand, he literally hunches down whether camera does not see him, and then completely disappears. And it's at that point that Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay, says this. Yeah, oh look at these two. All right, come on, you're okay? What Either that having an effeed or that's this great shot?

16:56 So yeah. Kristen would say later she had two thoughts. First, she said her strange husband would see this. They were having an amicable divorce as divorces go, and she said she didn't really want her a strange husband to be humiliated. You gotta remember, people knew this guy very popular in Boston. She didn't want everybody clowning him, if you will, saying oh, we saw your estranged wife hugging up on another dude at the Cold Blake concert. So that was her thoughts. In second, she said, Annie's my boss, and she didn't want either one of them getting into trouble with astronomer.

17:39 That was it. That was what she was worried about, and that seems completely reasonable. It tells me from a moral standpoint, she was doing nothing wrong. But any not only did he duck like he was dodging bullets in Vietnam, but he ran the hell out of the whole damn building, didn't even look back for Kristen. But why you gotta ask yourself that. Sure, he's wrapped around his subordinate, but it's not life or death unless he was lying. So we'll get back to that. So at this point, everyone leaves the arena and she and Andy they sit outside and they are like freaked out, and they decide to go back to the bar and go ahead and plan out how they were going to tell the board about this, because she just had a feeling, as did he, that this was gonna get around pretty quick. Not to the extended dead, obviously, but they knew somebody likely that knew them, saw this, and they wanted to make sure they were reported to that board before anyone else. So they make plans on what they're gonna do, and he leaves, Kristin goes home, goes to bed, and when she's going to sleep, she's thinking, everything will be fine, and we're gonna make sure we're ahead of this. Well, middle of the night, she gets a text while she's sleeping from her estranged husband, and that text was a link to a TikTok. So

19:12 she goes there and she sees the video that pretty much went around the world and holy smokes, millions upon millions of views already, And it's the middle of the night at this point. By eight o'clock in the morning, Annie and Kristin they have that call with the board, and the Board tells them that they had already been made aware of this. Somebody had already contacted them about the TikTok, But according to Kristin, they were pretty cool about it. They're like, hey, look, we're gonna get through this, no need to panic. So let's talk about Andy because apparently Andy lied to Kristin. How do we know this besides his obvious reaction on that jumbo tron, which told me kind of everything I needed to know about that. Well, just a few days after this incident, he resigns from Astronomer and his wife, who he was supposed to be separated from. She releases the following statement. This is on July twentieth quote. Hello everyone, I'm Megan Carrigan Byron. This is the most difficult moment of my life. I never imagined I would be thrust into the public spotlight in this way. I never imagined that my husband would betray me.

20:37 I always believe that my marriage with any Byron was built on trust, respect, and pure love. Every time he told me there was something important at work and he couldn't make it home on time, I believed him. But it turns out during those times he was with another woman. I naively thought he was working hard for our family, for our children. But the kiss caught on camera at the concert shattered everything. Seeing Andy and Kristin Cabot cuddled together, then hurriedly separating when they noticed the camera brought me a level of humiliation and pain I cannot even describe. I cannot accept his actions. He was the husband I was proud of, the father the children respected most. His betrayal not only trampled my personal dignity, it's a betrayal of our whole family. I have decided to leave him.

21:32 I cannot tolerate sharing a bed with a man who betrayed me. It's utterly disgusting. At the same time, I don't want my children to have to phase a father every day who doesn't truly value them. I will take my children and leave this repulsive man behind. Now I want to say something on that. Bringing the children into it kind of bothered me because I can tell, and I can kind of read between the lines that she was going to use that as a weapon against this guy by the way she wrote it. Now, I get it. She feels betrayed, she feels hurt, But it's bothersome that she would say, I will take my children and leave this repulsive man behind. When she wrote this particular Facebook post, it wasn't necessarily aimed at the general public. She probably could care less if anyone knew what her statement was.

22:25 It was aimed at him. It's telling him you're about to pay in a lot of ways, and I get it. Two days after it went down, this chick was pissed. Now, so as I said, the incident occurred on July sixteenth, This statement by his wife released on July twentieth, and it was apparent that this dude was lying like a rug. He was not freaking separated then, just two days later, another statement of sort, a Facebook post from Megan, and it reads, Hello, my name is Megan Carigan, no longer Meghan Byron. Today I officially dropped his last name. Now, she didn't officially drop it, She officially is saying she's dropping.

23:06 It would take longer than a day or two to drop a last name. But she goes on to say, while it may seem like just a formality to some, to me, it was closure. I didn't make this decision out of bitterness. I made it out of peace. I gave my heart, my loyalty, and my name to a man who couldn't even respect me in private, let alone in public. The betrayal was painful, but the public humiliation that cut deeper than anything. Watching the man I love kiss another woman not behind closed doors, and I want to interrupt there. They didn't kiss, or you didn't see him kissing on camera. But she's pessed, and so she's conflating things in her brain that didn't actually happen on camera.

23:52 But it doesn't matter. This sheck's pest and she has every right to be, she goes on to say, but at a concert in front of thousands, while the war recorded it like entertainment. That was the moment everything changed. I won't drag his name. I don't need to the world saw what I saw. This post isn't for pity, It's for power. I removed Byron his last name, not because I lost something, but because I finally found myself again and I'm not going back. Meghan Karrigan, so let me catch you up here. She went from the sixteenth being married to dropping her name in her mind. Obviously not legally, it would take longer than that. But all this occurred in less than a week, which is pretty wild to me. Now. That was so fast. I do suspect they were having problems, but I don't believe for a second they were just separated at this point. There's no way with the post that she's putting on Facebook.

24:51 This obviously shocked the shit out of his wife. And it's a real good example, y'all of how the general public jumps to a conclusion without knowing the full story. So made no mistake. Kristin was telling the truth and she was lied to by this guy, according to his wife. How do we know Kristin was not lying? Well? Her husband, as I told you, he was high profile in the area, and he actually released a statement weeks before the Coldplay incident, weeks before announcing he and Kristin were separated. So Kristin in this instance she was a victim, just like this guy's wife, but she was not treated as a victim.

25:36 Although she was offered to stay at Astronomer, the hate coming at her was so bad that she had to resign her position because she felt like it was hurting the company. She was also called a home wrecker. She was called a gold digger, a side piece, a slut. People would scrutinize her appearance all over freaking social media. She was docksed to hell and back. She actually received five to six hundred calls a day from crazy people, death threats, you name it. Her life practically ruined at this point in time, and she did nothing wrong zero.

26:19 But that's how dangerous social media can be. And that's how dangerous when you only know one side to a story, or you don't know any side, and you're basing a video off of no context, just what it looks like on the video, and you run to town with it and you got the whole freaking story wrong, and you ruining this lady's life. They ruined it at that time over that. It's infuriating to me. And then there was Andy Byron not saying a fucking word, not coming out at the bare minimum and saying, hey, look I lied to her. I lied to Kristen. She thought I was separated and I wasn't. I made a mistake, come to her defense a little bit. You supposedly were in love with this chick. He didn't do nothing and he never has, which to me, speaks volume on who this guy really is.

27:12 I mean, people screw up. We're all human, But to just leave this girl out there subjected to all that at your doing, what kind of man is that? It's disgusting? Really get this, because I'm about to drop the shocker of all. According to my research, he's still married as of today, as of this recording in April of twenty twenty six, this guy is still married to Megan. They never divorced. And guess what, her name is still the same and they're still going strong, I guess now. An interesting side note, you may wonder how much money the girl made that posted that original viral TikTok I was curious about. It had hundreds of millions of views. Well, her name is Grace Springer and according to her zero.

28:12 Unfortunately for Grace, at the time she posted that video, she did not qualify for monetizing. For that monetizing TikTok program, she didn't have enough subscribers yet at that point you had to have ten thousand subscribers in so many hours of views per month, and she didn't qualify for it. But when she posted that video it got two hundred million downloads. She gets zero because she was not in the program. So I got even more curious, and I was like, well, had she been in the program, what would she have likely made off of that one thirty second to boom thirty second TikTok get this, she would have made roughly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars she been in the monetization program, So I thought you might mind that interesting, but more of this story. Don't go with the story when you don't have both sides, because you can see this practically ruin someone's life. They had to quit their job, and they were doing nothing wrong.

29:18 Now any Byron fuck him. But the other one she was doing nothing wrong. And when I say she got raped over the coals. It was ridiculous, So I thought you might enjoy that story because I didn't know the story until I looked at both sides, and I sure was shocked. Thank you so much for listening. Now, before I get out of here today, I want to say, my prayers and thoughts are with all of the victims of the Mall of Louisiana mass shooting. This took place in Baton Rouge, in my backyard. If you have not listened to Crime Wire Weekly where we talked about this horrific incident, please go do so. Oh just horrible, awful kids just killed a seventeen year old, beautiful girl from Lafayat, killed a man with special needs forty three years old, fighting for his life as of this recording, and I can tell you the good people in my neck of the woods have had enough. It's as simple as that.

30:23 And things are about to drastically change in Baton Ridge, Louisiana, you can believe that. But many prayers and my thoughts are with everybody who is a victim, the families of those victims, and all who knew and loved them. Now, I do want to say before we get out of here today, I do have I guess kind of a surprise for you today. I'm exposed, and at the end of this one, you're going to hear an actual interview that Oprah Winfrey did with Kristen Cabot where she goes into a lot more detail than I went into today regarding everything she experienced as a result of this, and also a little more in depth about her side of the story. So I think you may enjoy it. It's just kind of an extra I wanted to give you at the end of this one, so if you want to listen to it, it's going to play in just a second as soon as I need my clothes. Lastly, check out the Patreon commercial free early Releases bonus episode as I got all kinds of things on that Patreon page and it's about to get a lot more active.

31:34 Luck. Two mass shootings in Louisiana in the last week have really thrown me into nineteen different directions, and I haven't been able to follow up with some things on Patreon, but I'm about to get back into the groove with that, So thank you for being patient with me. There. Until next time for exposed scandalous files of the Elite, I'm your host Jim Chapman, much love. You decided that this would be the only on camera interview that you're planning to give. Why did you decide to be here today? Yeah, First, I want to thank you for having me. I was reluctant to come, but I'm really grateful to be here for me.

32:20 My mom always. Taught us silence as acceptance. I think I mentioned that in the article, and for me and my family, what happened was not okay, and I felt like by remaining silent, it was somehow accepting what had happened. And I really felt also, there's a lot of people out there that experienced something similar that didn't either have the strength to come forward or were too traumatized or lost their lives due to some of the things I experienced, And I feel a sense of responsibility for those people to speak out and share what it's really like when people carelessly comment forward, click like and the damage that I can really do. So yes, you and I spoke on Zoom said.

33:00 First of all, before the story and the times I didn't know the story, I was like everybody else. I didn't watch it hundreds of times or even more than once, but I made the judgment that you had made a mistake in your out with your boss, and I did not know the crucial part of that story that was left missing from all of the tiktoks that were shared. I'm gonna let you share that. So take us back to the to the night of the Coldplay concert and the decision to go to the Coldplay concert. Yeah, that's a great question. So I had been going through I'll go a little bit before before that's okay. So maybe four or six weeks prior to the Coldplay concert, my husband and I had decided to separate and were living apart and planning for a divorce. And Andy Byer in my boss at the time. He and I had a very close working relationship.

33:58 For anyone that's worked in tech a high growth startup, they'll understand that the chief people officer and the CEO are partners. We work side by side around the clock. It was it was a high growth startup that was growing at one hundred percent year over year. We were hiring like crazy, and so we were really in it together and spent a ton of time together. And it was Yeah, it was about It was about around the time that Andrew and I my husband had separated and Andy have the same name, so forgive me to try to keep up here. Andy and I had gone out to grab sandwiches during the workday and he asked me, I seemed a little off, and he just said, what's going on? And I said, well, my my husband and I are separating and planning a divorce. And he immediately let me know that he was in the exact same situation that he and his wife were living apart. They were planning for a divorce and it had been many years in the making. So that became like a really instant kind of point of connection for us. And over the next you know, few weeks to month, that was a place that was really great for me to be able to go to talk about what I was going through, and I was a good safe space for him, and I think probably my friend did you both talk about it was like going through that was where we started to build a bit of a stronger connection.

35:11 And I, you know, I was really surprised when he told me. I just we didn't talk a lot about our personal lives prior to that, so I didn't expect to hear that from him. Right he had been married a long time, so I just assumed all was well. So we leading up to the concert, like at that point we started talking a lot more about personal things and kids and how it's going and all of that, in addition to the busy and frequent work conversations. And were you having more lunches was it becoming Yeah, yes, we were. We It just felt like a really familiar, like safe place to talk about what was going on. And it's so much easier when someone else is in it in the same experience. We could share that. So so we developed feelings for each other during that time, because I'm very sure, Yeah, were you attracted to each other? Yes, yeah, yes, absolutely, And that's why I like, you know, when people would say, oh, they didn't look like friends in the video, like that was the culmination point of feelings that had developed over the course of you know, four to six weeks.

36:06 I was okay. So when we spoke over zoom, you said, that was the first time you all had done anything publicly. That's the first time you'd actually shared any kind of physical to physical touch. Yes, so at the Coldplay concerts first time. Yes, I'll explain, I'll explain. I'm here to share what really happened. So Okay, I know, I know there's a lot of there's a lot of context there. So I had friends that had gotten tickets to the show. They asked if I wanted to join the two extra seats. I never go out, so it's kind of a joke amongst my friends. Let alone on a weeknight, usually with my kids or I'm working, and I had just gone through a pretty tough period, and I was like, you know what, it's summer, it's a week night, Like I'm going to go see I love cold Play, I'm going.

36:48 To go or I loved Coldplay, but. I kind of got ruined for me, I'll be honest, not the biggest fan anymore. But and it was it was like such a no brainer to invite Andy. We just we When I say we would talk like ten times a day. That was even before this connection started. It's just the nature of our job and our working relationship. Plus we were, you know, enjoying spending time together, and it just seemed like. We've been I just want to be clear, what time had you spent together before lunches? We would lunches at work. So everything had been business up until the Cold Boat content yes. Yes, whoa. Absolutely though we'd had a lot of personal conversation and had acknowledged that we had feelings for each other.

37:28 Okay, Also, it was. Becoming apparent to me that we were putting ourselves in a situation where it was going to get risky from a work standpoint. I mean I reported to him it's you know, it's my role was to actually like be aware of those things happening at work and flagging when it might. Cause Yeah, prop so was there. I always say that there's a whisper and then there's a pebble and a brick and a brick? Was there a little whisper saying we should tell somebody or we should. It was more than a whisper. It was like a real conversation where we sat down and said, like, we have to figure out a plan for this because we're these feelings were real. This wasn't like a fleeting thing. And we decided that we put kind of a plan together, but we wanted to propose to our board of directors that would change the reporting structure.

38:11 Didn't you tell me that you were thinking about going to the board? Are you all were going to go to geh? We ironically met probably five or six days before the concert. We had we had a lunch that was a lengthy lunch to talk about this and to make a plan. And plan was to go to the to the board and let them know that we had developed feelings for one another and that we wanted to change and in it was consensual. It was consensual, and which is an important point, one hundred percent, And we wanted to propose a plan for what might work to make, you know, take this reporting line out of the equation, meaning you reporting to him, meaning no longer reporting to him, no longer according to one of our investors, anything like that. All right, that makes sense. Seemed like it made sense at the time. Yeah, felt it felt like the right thing to do. And yeah, and then I got the invitation to Cold Play. I invited him to come. It was sort of non decision. It was just kind of like, hey, we got tickets, do you want to come? And it's like, great, let's go. And I thought, you know, if we've.

39:06 Kept it, why didn't you ask one of your girlfriends? Well, I was already going with my two best friends who may or may not be in the audience right now. They were one of them was already going, and the. Other one is the one that offered me the ticket, okay, yeah, and. It just he's the one I wanted to hang out with. We had a blast together, okay, and we've been keeping it together, like I could go to work and be normal. I can go to a concert and be normal until I couldn't obviously, but it was just it seemed like a fun plan. Got it? So he said yes, he said, yessly mm hmm. And this was the. First time so Pol had done something socially other than meeting for lunches and discussing business. Raptic drinks after work okay, colleagues and things like okay.

39:48 Yeah, so you get to the concert and what happened. Well, I was walking into the concert and my daughter messaged me and said, oh, it's so great that you and Andrew were both at Coldplay. So she let me know that my estranged husband was also at the concert. So I think it's very important. This is what I did not know before the story. And y'all can obviously didn't know either that she was separated from her husband and that her boss was also separated or said he was separated from his wife. Did y'all know that, Okay, all right, or that or that her husband was there. This is the thing. So you get texted, you get texted from one of your children.

40:36 Yeah, my daughter's like, this is so fun great. I was like, and in my mind, I thought, well, that's is this going to be weird if he sees me with Andy like that, you run into him, Yeah, if I run into him. But then I was like, I'm Anchelllette Stadium. There's fifty five thousand people here. I'm probably not going to run into him. But it doesn't matter. I mean, so that would have been better at the end of the day, I might just run into him. But it's you know, he knows. He knows how closely Andy and I worked together. He knows we social like got lunches and got drinks. It was fine. So he knew that there was a relationship there. Yes, he just he knows the nature of my work and the way the really I've shared desks with, the CEOs I worked with, like, it's just a very close through it. And so it didn't matter to me. Okay, I got to get to the moment. You got to get there.

41:17 You all hadn't touched you that's what you said to us earlier. You hadn't even touched. Well, we did that evening before we got I mean, we started to touch before it was on camera, but that yeah. Okay, but that was the first time you all had physically touched courage others like correct, okay. Other than like a you know tap, you know, when you're chatting with someone and you okay, yeah, So what made you do it? Then? I had a. Really big crush on him, Oprah, Yeah, and so did he. I mean, we these these were like really incredible feelings. And I don't know women that could relate to this, but I had been going through a really tough time. I was coming out of a separation, and it felt really good to get attention and affection from an awesome man.

41:58 You know, it felt out of key point here that you shared with me on the Zoom High Noons. I would love to talk about the High News. Yeah, can we can we take a moment? Look look at Gail going what is that Gail is? Gail has never. Drank anything other than h I like a good Shirley Tale. She likes a good Shirley tale. So she just looked at I saw you look what is a high news. I want to talk about the high news because that became a big, big topic. On the internet for some reason. I told Lisa Miller in the New York Times article that, you know, I'd had a couple of high nuons and we were dancing and we got swept up. All you need it was a couple I only had two. So well, I mean. Too, that make you feel like Gail used to ask me all the time, I see you getting yourself all liquored up, what does it do for you? I'm not getting liquored up, Gail. It's just a vodka tonic. Okay, So it does make you, Gail. Alcohol makes you feel a little looser, risky, risky, frisky, not even frisky.

42:55 It's just it's just a little looser, a little looser. And my only, yeah, my only point in mentioning it to Lisa Miller. Had I known, what would have happened that, you know, because suddenly I'm blaming it on alcohol, and suddenly none of that is true. I simply mentioned it to like set the tone of the vibe. Like you're at a concert at summer, a couple of high noons, you're dancing, You're having fun. Everybody maybe except for you. Gail has done that and knows. What I mean. Like, it's a good it's just an easy. Like a fun feeling, and that's that was the vibe that we had and that's why I shared it. And by the way, I think, well, Gail, well, I said, do you have a lemonade? Yeah? And could you add a dash your cranberry juice? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a couple of. High noons, you're feeling really great and you're at a concert and you love Coldplay and everything's going well.

43:40 It felt really good. Yes. It also, I should note it felt really anonymous, and I feel like I need to explain that too, because it didn't look that way on the video. Where we were was at the complete opposite end of Gillette Stadium from the stage. We were in an area called I think it was called the Pavilion, but it's a big general it's a it's a off area where there's no seats. It's general admission in this section and it holds about two hundred and fifty people. So we were in that area and we were kind of up at the front of the near the railing, but we were with a like with a group and with friends. So we were dancing and talking and it was really dark, and it just we. Got very swept up. And it didn't feel in any way that we were risking being And it wasn't even calculated where we thought to ourselves like, oh, no, one's looking, let's like put our hands on each other. It wasn't that. It was just it just was a natural. Okay, So let's go to that moment that we have all seen.

44:34 Have you all seen it? Okay, let's go to the moment we've all seen. So you're swaying. I don't even remember the song, do you? Yes? What was the song? Yellow? Okay, you're look get that's Gales Yellow. I used to love Yellow Gale Ye. So you're swaying to the song and then you suddenly see yourself on the jombatron. You turned around. He okay, so you see yourself. Take us to that moment. Yeah, that was a moment of total horror. Is really the best way I can describe it. My immediate thought was, oh my god, my husband's in the building. He was there with someone else, and I knew that, and that is that was great and fine. But he and I were in the midst of our separation, incredibly amicable, Like to this day, he's been one of the biggest supporters of me through all of this. He's an incredible man and the last thing I wanted to do was embarrass him.

45:30 And that was my first thought when I saw myself that in that moment. Isn't there an instance when you're looking at yourself on the jumpotron? Because I remember Gail and I had gone to an event, Gail Maria Schwiver and I and for the Pope, and there's Gail on the Remember you saw yourself. You said, who said red haired womans? And Michael said, red haired black woman. That would be you. And so is there a moment when you say yourself, Oh my god, that's me. Yes, yeah, Yeah, there was like a split second where it was like almost I mean to me, it's like surreal.

46:10 I can't even really remember, but I do remember looking and being like, oh my god, Like I said worse than that in my head. But my initial thought was, oh my god, Andrew's here. And my second thought was, oh my god, I'm in the arms of my boss and I'm the head of. HR, Like this is a really bad look. Yeah, everybody assumed I was horrified because it meant somehow I got busted having an affair like that is not what was happening. I felt like those two. Reasons were big enough for me in that moment to be really horrified. Did you even hear? No? So I wanted to share that too. So we were all like dancing, and you know, when there's music playing and you're talking, you're kind of whispering in people's ears or yelling in their ears. We were talking and with my friends too, and we didn't hear Chris Martin say we're going to pan the audience, like we never heard him warned that he was doing that, And we never heard him say they must be shy or they're having an affair. I had no idea he said that until like days later or the next day.

47:02 I don't remember from It was a blur after that night, but I didn't know that at all. I whipped around like op if we were at a Celtics game and we got put on the JumboTron, I'm gonna whip around. I'm not a JumboTron girl, even on my best days. It's not my thing. So I would have probably done some version of that. But in that moment, I was just horrified at and your first thought was and Andrew, your husband, my. Job and job. Yeah, and irony of the whole thing, or the naivete of the whole thing is the entire ride home. We were in an suv group of us. Was all I was worried about was Andrew. I kept saying, maybe he left early, maybe he didn't see it. That was what I thought was the biggest problem. I had my hat on my hand. Why were you worried if you were already separated?

47:42 Because we were in the middle of going through our divorce planning and it was going really we were doing it in a really amicable way. He was there with somebody. He was there with somebody, but I didn't. Andrew comes from an incredibly private family in the Boston area, and I just knew in my head, like the public embarrassment is not something that would have gone overwhell Okay. So my first thought was, Andrew, what did you all do immediately afterwards? So you turned around and Andy Byron ducked, your boss at the time, ducked yes. And then did you all immediately leave this? Yeah? So he and I left the area, the general admission area behind that had indoors, had like a bar area and some like tables set up.

48:27 Did you leave with your friends or did you know? He and I left the standing room area, went through the doors and sat down at one of those tables, and we're just like, what just happened? Okay, what is going to what could this? What is going to happen? Or what? What is what happened? Yeah, I don't know how to explain. And that's when I was like, oh my god, Andrew, you know, he was going through his head of what he was worried about. I was thinking about my stuff. And then it was really towards the end of the concert. And then about the end of that song, I think my friends came through the door and they're like, let's just get out of here, and so we all left. The stadium and what were they thinking? They were just like, oh my god, I cannot believe this is like getting struck by lightning? How did this even? How on earth? And I can't believe that just happened to you. That's like the worst luck. And then we were in the elevator heading down and a woman in the elevator was like wait was that you on the JumboTron?

49:16 And I was like no. And then my friend Elena looked at me and was like, is that what we're saying? I like, are we we're saying? No? That wasn't you? Like? What? We should we huddle up on this like, but we just didn't know what We had no concept that this was okay. So you were worried about your your husband who you were separating from, yes, and the woman that he's there. I wasn't really worried about that. I mean I was just so I didn't want to embarrass him, and I didn't. Wanted about your husband. He worried about your husband that you are now separated from. Was he worried about anything? No? You mean do you mean Andy Andy Andy Byron? Oh? Yes? What did he say? He was worried about it? I mean, I don't want to speak for him, but I think, you know, we live in that area. I think you know, he's going through his own separation and divorce.

50:01 I think he's not looking to a measure of boss. That was the other big I mean, it's really not It's really bad in our roles to have been caught in that posession. Yeah, Yeah, and that was you know, we do live in the area. The company was based in New York, but we've both had twenty five or so thirty years in our career in that area. And the one thing I want to share with you all when I had I had only one other conversation with Kristen on zoom prior to this interview, a couple of months ago. Yeah, and the one thing that I appreciated in that conversation, which you can share here, is that you kept saying I made a mistake. It was a mistake. I shouldn't have been out with my boss.

50:41 But it wasn't a mistake that I deserved to die for. It wasn't a mistake that I deserved to have people coming up to me on the street and saying I should die because of it. It wasn't a mistake that deserved people threatening me and threatening my children. It was a mistake. So that's what you told me. Do you still feel that it was a mistake. Absolutely, And I've been telling anyone that will listen. You know, I own the poor decision that I made in that moment, and I've paid a unimaginable price for that. Yeah. I also you know. That was why I chose to leave my job. Because I think I put the company in a position, given how viral and toxic, this became a position you can't come back.

51:25 Okay, So let's go back to it. YEA, just walk us through it. You all leave, You're like, what just happens? And then what happened? So we all piled into a suv. We had all ridden together, and there were six of us, and I mean, it was a pretty tense car ride home, but it was I was hand ringing over Andrewsy. It was just a ridiculous looking at it now. What I was most worried about. Andy was pretty quiet in the car. Yeah, and our friends nobody nobody thought it was like, oh that was such bad luck. Like hopefully no one really saw it. Okay, so tell everybody. You get home and you're thinking, we're going to tell the board tomorrow.

52:05 You're going to go to the board and tell them. Yes, so you all come. Didn't you come up with them my apartment? Yes? Andy did? Yes, And we were like, we have to come up with the state. We have to talk to the board immediately. Yeah, did you come up with a statement. No. We drafted an email together to send the board from both of us to say we need to speak very first thing in the morning. Most of our board, actually all all but one run on the West Coast, so we wanted to make sure they will. Draft it an email to send to the board. That's right, And then you go home and you. Go to sleep, go to sleep again, not really thinking yeah, And in the middle of the night, in the middle of the night, I got a message from Andrew, my husband, I feel like I need to keep qualifying because they're this thing. And he sent me a text with a snapshot of a TikTok of the TikTok video and said you need to Basically, I don't remember the exact words, but it was like, there's a like Houston, we have a problem here, you know. And he really wanted to get to me so I could get to my kids before they who were teenagers, before they woke up and got on their phones and saw it.

53:10 Right, So your teenagers or not his children? Correct, yes, but your children have a great relationship with him. Incredible, Yeah, because you all had been married how many years, oh, less than two years. We met during COVID and he immediately built an incredible bomb of my kids and they're they're very close still today. Okay, so how did you find out that the video had blown up the internet. I'm trying to remember. It's like such a while. That next day was so hard. So when Andrew calls you and says, we have there's like this is happening on TikTok, I'm not on any of those apps, so I didn't see it. I couldn't see it personally. I had no sense for it. Initially, personally, I don't I've never had TikTok or anything like that. But he let me know, you didn't know what it was. Yeah, and then in the morning, by seven or eight am.

53:57 If you all imagine this, can you imagine it? Just my phone started, you know, a lot of phone calls started coming in from front of my friends. All my close friends were just like, you know, this is something's going on here, and I can't I wish I could remember how long it took from being kind of a problem to like realizing it was. No need to hit sind to the board. Yeah, well we did. We did have a call with the. Board immediately, and they had already heard about it at that point, but we had they were they were actually really understanding, and we had a really good conversation about it, and they were very he resigned. He hadn't resigned yet. He did that a few days later.

54:37 And then did they offer you they wanted you to stay? Yes, Yes, they wanted you to stay. Yes, they are going to stay. Well, that's the problem. I mean, that was the conversation I had with them. Had it not gone so viral and gotten so toxic, I would have gone back in and taken the punch and stood up in front of the company and said, I'm you know, I'm a human. I made a really poor choice, but we're building something incredible. I'm like, let's get back to it and hope that they would be okay with that. But I had that was not an option. I did not feel like I could go in and say, hey, everybody like, do as I say, but not as I do. And I felt like that it would put everybody in such a bad situation and it just wasn't fair to the employees. I appreciated that the board was behind me, and I appreciated they did go through an HR investigation and it yielded nothing, and I appreciated that at least internally there. I got that's support, but it wasn't viable.

55:29 It wasn't fair to ask the employees of it. So why do you think that this went off like a like a bomb? Was it Chris Martin's comment in that moment that maybe you were having an affair? Was it the fact that Andy Byron duck or that you turned around? Was it that he was the CEO and you're the head of HR? What is it? I think it was a I've thought a lot about that. I think it was a whole combination of was a company, of all of those things I felt in the in the initial moments. I'm sure it was funny to people. You know, I can appreciate that. I've certainly seen funny things online and forwarded them around and clicked on them. I just don't think people think people really stop and think about there's real humans behind the real life there, and it is incredibly.

56:15 Destructive. And I you know, listen, I've seen funny things in Center around two, probably not giving it a ton of thought before this happened. I'm very thinking, very differently now than I was. But I think people thought it was funny. I think our world is you know, news is a really sad thing to watch. I think we're constantly inundated with bad news. I've heard some people say that that video, seen three hundred billion times by only eight billion people on the planet, was the thing that united people, that people were united in their judgment, and I feel bad for us as human beings that that's what we did to you. Thank you.

56:55 We were all united in the judgment of whatever it is you were doing, you shouldn't have been doing it, and we could all actually agree on that without knowing the story behind the story. And I heard that there were people that advise you that everything would blow over in three days. Who they He'll tell you? Yeh. I wish I could say, because you'd all be shocked. But it's a very prominent person in public relations that I spoke to that said to me, you have triggered such an avalanche of hate for whatever reason, that people are not going to be open to hearing from you right now. They're not going to believe what you say. Your best bet is to stay quiet, keep your head down, and then let some time pass and then speak up. And this is not my world.

57:37 I don't know, and I really believed what she said, and I guess it makes sense. I could tell that there was so much hate. I thought, maybe this, maybe that is better. Why do you think there was so much hate? That's been one of the hardest things for me to reconcile because none of the nobody knows me, nobody that judged this knows me. So it wasn't me, you know, it was I think it was. Listen. I think a lot of people have had not great interactions with HR. I think there's some piece of it that's like stick it to the HR lady. I get it. That's kind of funny. I think, you know, it was incredibly cliche on every level, like the CEO and the chief people officer, and I think, you know, I don't know.

58:21 I just think people hurt. People hurt people, and I think, well, there's a lot of hurt people three hundred billion times. So The New York. Times wrote that she's been called the quote. She's been called a slut, a homewrecker, a gold digger. A side piece. The usual tags for shaming women is what Lisa Miller wrote. And you told me that you believe that women are apt to quote each other alive, and that most of your criticism has actually come from other women, that other women are the only ones who dare to come up to your face and say horrible things, right, yeah, that's right.

59:03 That was for me, I think, one of other than obviously my concern for what my kids experienced. That was to me, the most upsetting piece of all of this was I had no idea how. Unwell we are as a gender. Still. I think I was living in a really lovely naive bubble. In some ways where I have surrounded myself with and am so fortunate to be surrounded by incredible women that support have supported me, you know, through thick and thin. I do the same for them, and I don't know women that tear each other down. That's not been my own experience, and it worked like I've been really intentional about the women that work with and for me, like bringing them along in their career, giving opportunity, mentoring and helping them. It's just not It was just such a shock to me. I think I was told that ninety percent of the online comments and hate came from women.

59:56 Every single interaction I had in person, and there were many or all women, you know. Since we had our conversation, I was thinking about this, And I say this, you know, not just because Gail is here, but it's pretty publicly known that Gail went through a divorce and her husband had an affair. And Gail always says that there's a lot of members of that club. There's a lot of women who are a part of that club of who with partners who betrayed them with other women. And I think that for a lot of women, you became the face of that. Do you all think that that you became the face of the woman who took my husband, the woman who would take my husband, the woman who that's where the hate created from. And I also think that if you look differently, you would have probably had another outcome. You know, I think you are the blonde ideal, the girl next door, all of that.

1:00:54 Am I am? I being truthful here? What I think it's I think it's the whole package. It's not one thing, it's everything. I do think there was something people attached to me that triggered things within themselves. I don't think you know now that I say, I don't think they don't know me. It can't really be me, but it's something I represent And I yeah, I think that you know, I think about my own triggers and things that are like unhealed inside of me. I try to think of, like what's what makes me feel a certain way or what it's my own fears that are that are not quite healed I think when I. So, the question is, did he get the same kind of vitual Andy Byron, your boss? Did people were people coming up to him? But no, not at all, attacking him, attacking his children? No, yeah, And I mean just.

1:01:37 Thinking about you know, starting from the very beginning, I was every single part of my physical appearance was picked apart. There were stories written about jewelry I was wearing and who bought it for me and how much it cost. When one of my best friends is a jewelry designer and I've bought everything for. Myself that she made me. And it's you know, my hairdresser somebody found and that turned into a whole thing where she was dragged forgive me crappy root of crappy highlights and she got lit up for that and just everything about how I look, to how I was dressed, to how I behaved, to you know, the sleeping my way to the top, to the gold digger to this you know all the words that Lisa used, the husband's stealer, which, by the way, that expression really bugs me. And I'm not trying to make light obviously of adultery. It's it's not that, but this notion of women's stealing men like I would walk in and duct tape and zip tie a guy and like unwittingly drag him out and steal like the man has no role in this. This is you know, and for me, like I was the face of all of this.

1:02:33 There was no one talking about Andy's hair, shirt watch, there was no one questioning I mean, maybe anyone here can correct me. I never read or heard. Anything about Wow, did he become a CEO by sleeping his way to the top. No, And that's all anyone would say about me. It was unfathomable that I might have achieved and worked and hustled and built a career I'm incredibly proud of. That was not on the table. Your best friend I heard told you that these people hated you before they even knew anything about you. Uh, do you think that's true? What do you think that is? Yeah? I think that's what you touched on a few minutes ago. I think it's I've represented something for people that they were afraid of in that moment, and I can have empathy for that. I think if you're going to snap to a judgment, you're gonna have I don't have empathy for people snapping to a quick judgment and just assuming and using zero critical thinking skills. But I do have empathy or I do have understanding for why that would trigger people.

1:03:28 So I'm trying to cause. You look like you look no, because I think you know I'm The way the story was narrated for me without my input was I'm, you know, having an affair with my boss and we're running around and we're on the company credit card buying to It's probably what a lot of women worry about when their husbands are out on there. You know, I get that. I can understand that. Yeah, so you share custody of your your two children with your first husband, and how has this impacted your children? That's the this is the tough one. It's it was a nightmare. How old are your kids. They're almost fifteen and almost seventeen, so they're at an age where everything you know, they were fourteen and sixteen when this seteen and sixteen.

1:04:09 We're still in it. They're really they're doing really well. And altially thought the place she went someplace, You went someplace and your daughter said, Mom, can we just leave? Because yeah, we. Were at the local pool. This was a few weeks after I decided. It was probably in later August, when I felt like safe. I tried to going out, you know, trying to go out. My daughter and I went to the pool, big hack, glasses, all the things, and a woman at the pool started taking our picture in a really not subtle way, and my daughter just she just lost it. She's like, we need to just leave. And I was like, I'm so sorry. And I didn't, you know, I was not in a position. That's funny, the version of me before this concert, I would have marched right up to her and grab her. I mean, I'm not a shrinking violet. But I became, you know, a very a different version of myself, and I just we packed up and left.

1:04:59 You. I think they you were taking on the guilt and shame that other people were trying to put on you. Yes and no, I felt tremendous guilt for the effect it was having on my family, and I felt responsible for that. But I did not. I knew what really happened, and I didn't feel shame for something I didn't do. I wasn't questioning. I knew the mistake I made. I was really clear on what that was. But I was also really clear that it doesn't deserve the treatment that I got. It doesn't deserve, you know, being made to feel that you should die. Can you share with us what those first hours, days, and then weeks were, Like, I mean, how.

1:05:42 Low did you go? I? I mean, yeah, it was dark. The first weekend after the concert, I rented an airbnb and went up to the mountains in New Hampshire with my dog, thinking I was just going to let it blow over and come back. I really didn't understand because I off all access to the internet and social media and everything I did. I went away thinking, oh, it was sort of like the beginning of COVID, when you're like, we'll close the office for the week and we'll see in a week and then you're like, see you in two years. It was sort of like that. I thought I'll just go and disappear for the weekend. But when I came back do a self care. Day, I did. Yeah, it was like I'm just gonna regroup and relax and not thought it would blow over in a few days, as you had been told, as I've been told. Yes, that definitely didn't happen. But I came back to my house that had was a place that was really like my safe space, as your home typically is, and it became a place that was as unsafe as any place could be because a local radio station gave out my address on the air, and for whatever reason, the whole world has access to my phone number, and I guess that I don't know.

1:06:50 How people do that. But so from that day I returned, there was well, there was paparazzi there for weeks. They wouldn't leave. There was I had people trespassing and looking in my windows. We had people doing drive bys and yelling and honking. We had with your children home, Yes, with my children home. My phone was ringing around the clock and just vile text messages and voicemails. That's probably a couple of days in when the death threats started. But they were also just perverse, disgusting messages. I've I got emails constantly. Were you afraid? Yeah? I was really I was terrified, And your children were really scared because your children overheard you speaking to your mom.

1:07:31 They did, and they heard one of the death threats. My kids asked me not to spend too much time talking about them today, but I'm there's I'm comfortable talking about portions of it, and that's one of them. They were terrified for me. They're really protective of me, but they were also really scared for what this meant for all of us. We're not used to having we're really private, like when you were. Kids are hearing that you were getting death threats. Kids think we're going to lose our mom. H m hm, that's what Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Then we're going to lose our mom. Yeah, then they have to now be afraid for you. That's right. Yeah, that's right. And you know, I've been a single mom for a while and they i think already lean into taking care of me more than I'd like them to do.

1:08:14 With their age. I've got it, you know, until I'm good. But they've always been they're really like sweet and I don't know, empathic people, so they really like they're always kind of keeping an eye and making sure I'm okay. So this kind of elevated all of that. You know, in all this, I mean every I think a lot of people at this point have experienced online vitriol or people saying horrible things. And sometimes there's something that just is said and it just it cuts you. Yeah, especially if it's untrue. Did you have one of those moments where something was said and it just like brought you to your knees or you made you not want to get out of. Bed or yeah it was And there's actually a few, but the one that just came to mind first was was the peace around sleeping my way to the top at work I've spent I've worked in advertising and technology, which are really male dominated industries, and I've spent my entire career fighting against the stereotype of you know, I must be sleeping with someone or you know, there's and I've been so intentional about how I moved through my work life. I've never been involved with anyone I've worked with before.

1:09:21 I've been working since I. Was thirteen, and you know, my mom had us out really legally working early on, and I never stopped. And my career was my identity, for better or worse. And this has been a wake up call around that, but that was my I had tremendous pride in what I had built. I love what I do, and for that to be a whole, entire narrative you're written that takes that away from me felt it just gutted me in a way that I can't explain. So it was really that one, I think, you know, obviously, being called all these horrible names is it hurts. I have a friend that said to me recently, like, why would you take criticism from people you would not take advice from? And that really hit home for me, and I thought about it him, like, it's a great point.

1:10:10 I don't but I did. It's a great point, but when you're in the middle of it, it's hard to figure that's right. Yeah, And it hurts, like you know, and it's easy to say, oh, ignore the trolls or but it's really hard, you know. I mean, it's really hard to ignore that. And it gets really personal. Yeah, did you have family that were there for you? Yeah? My family's incredible And I just you asked earlier, like how load did it get? And I do need to say that if I didn't have the family that I have and the friends that just wrapped a big, warm blanket around me, Like, I don't know that I would have made it through this. And had I been the twenty five year old version of myself, I would not be sitting here. Yeah, there's no way. Yeah, it was really horrific. Because yeah, when you hear the number, I think it was you who told me that, three hundred billion. When you hear them three hundred how is that way?

1:10:54 That doesn't include social media, that's just the internet. How wild did it get on I don't know how wild it got on social but I think it was wilder than just like the you know, different tabloid websites, But that three inder billion is on the websites alone. Yeah, that's really disturbing. And so how did you get your children through it? When you're when your children when you become the meme and everybody knows it's your mom? Yeah, how did you? How did you get them through there? It was tough. I mean we we had a lot of conversation in the beginning though, I mean I was I was not momming to the best of my abilities. It was I was pretty broken down. We had for better worse. We had a lot of family visiting last summer, I had a lot of people staying at my house, my brother and his family and a.

1:11:38 Lot of guests. So I tried to kind of pivot to just like. Life as usual as best I could after maybe the first month, and we tried to just get back to it, like go to the beach. Like try to do some normal things. It was hard because people were not trying to come up to me in front of my kids. And I had a group of women that I was at my son's works. It works at a surf shop at the beach near a house, and a group of women surrounded my car and in front of my son and started to, you know, harass me verbally and kind of make it hard for me to move my car away from where they were. And it was it was hard to explain that to my kids.

1:12:19 You know, they were they were really lucky to have their peers show up for them in a really supportive way, but they were struck by how horrific grown ups were acting. And that's a really hard thing for me to explain to kids that, you know, why, because I didn't. Even do they even understand why? Yeah, because how do you explain to them why the people are hating you so. Much, right, I tried to explain to them kind of what you described, like, I think I'm representative of something that touches it a lot of fear in people I don't and I didn't know, you know, I was trying to figure it out myself, and I wish I could have showed up for them in better ways than I did, But I did the best I could do, and in those moments it was really hard. Going back to school for them was really hard. They didn't want me on their campuses for the first semester or trimester, so I missed, you know. I didn't go to games, I didn't go to parent conferences. I couldn't go to parents' weekend at my son's school. But the schools were wonderful. I worked with them closely to make sure the kids were supported, and like I said, their friends were great.

1:13:14 Do you still talk to Andy Byron, your former boss? No? I ended communication with Andy in midfall. There was a big miss on honesty and integrity. I don't. He didn't. He wasn't the person he represented himself to be to me, and lying is not a non. Negotiable for me. What does that mean? Actually? It means, I don't you know, there was he missed the mark on being as honest as he could have been with me. And at the end of the day, Oprah, like I was the one left to tell. He wasn't separating, because what you're implying to me, what I'm hearing, is that he really wasn't separated. Is that what you're trying to say. I want to be really careful because the world spoke for me and on my behalf, and I don't want to do that to somebody else in their family. I don't feel comfortable, but I will say like a lot of what was represented to me was not true. Okay, I also want to say that being left.

1:14:06 But will you verify again, as you said to us earlier, that he had told you when you told him you were separated, he had said to you, he's going through. The city unequivocally, okay, unequivocally. So you believed when you were standing with him at the cold Play concert that he was. Such absolutely zero doubt, zero doubt. But I was left holding the bag, and I don't you know, being the one that was attacked for this with you know, he's remained silent to me that's not a quality that I would look for in a friend or a partner or a boss. So we have no relationship. What what would you have wanted him to do or say?

1:14:48 I mean, the entire trajectory of this would have changed if he would have just made a quick statement to say, my wife and I were separated at the time of the concert, just like my husband did. But it didn't matter when. It was great that Andrew did that, but it also I was still left with you know, the tone changel. But okay, so she was separated, but he wasn't, So she's still a homewrecker. Okay. One moment, and it's one moment, and one. Split second decision can change the trajectory of anybody's life. Why do you know I'm always whenever something particularly this big, happens, I say, what are you trying to teach me? God? I know you didn't have to use this bigger lesson? Yeah, I could have gotten with something smaller.

1:15:34 Have you looked at this in the bigger picture of your life? Why did this show up in your life this way? And what is it here to teach you? Yeah? I mean that's the million dollar question I think about that every single day. And I do believe like I got knocked off my course for a reason, like some there's something to learn here, and there's bits and pieces that are coming into the light. For me, I'm really understanding and I had no concept of this, how when something goes this viral, how the technology companies are benefiting from this, and how we don't know that when we're forwarding and liking and clicking, we are putting billions of dollars in their pockets, just creating an algorithm and creating an algorithm that feeds it. And the more pain someone like me is in, the more money they're going to make, and it fuels it and feeds it. And I think there's accountability there that needs to be looked at. I think I'm heartbroken at how women are treating other women like I want to One thing I don't know the answer to yet, but is like, how can my experience turn into something positive to keep that conversation alive and try to figure out like why are we doing this to each other? We're so much stronger together. Why are we eating each other alive? Yeah, and holding each other back?

1:16:51 And why do we take such joy and seeing other people suffer. Yeah, it's really scary. It's so interesting once you've been through something like this, when you see somebody else going through it, it creates an empaththetic moment for you to want to reach out and say, I know what that's like, or. It's right, Yeah, that's right. I did that. I reached out to a family. There was a girl who was I don't know if you heard about this. She was four years old receiving zillions of death threats because she was helping her dad, who's a radio personally pick out football teams and she started to miss the mark on the choices and people started threatening her life because she was screwing up their gambling publicly. They were threatening this four year old girl. And I reached out to her family and they were lovely, and I mean, it's so scary what they're going through.

1:17:34 I mean, it's just it's happening all the time. It's also my producer said that what Darrel Hannah recently released a statement about what was going on in the Kennedy love story. That's right, yeah, and I actually brought I wanted to share a quote if I could from that. I don't if anyone has if you haven't read her essay in New York Times this past week. It's a beautifully written piece, but it struck me deeply. And there was a part where she talks about how Jackie Nasis used to say to her, like, there's gonna be horrible things in the news. It's gonna, you know, star Rohannah was dating, was dating John F. Kennedy Junior, and Jackie O said, you're gonna people are gonna write horrible things about you, but don't worry about it. It'll be lining a bird cage tomorrow and people will, you know, the newspapers will be lining bird cages.

1:18:14 Don't worry. And she wrote, and I quote this was from on the sixth of March. In the digital age, stories do not disappear. Yesterday's news is not tossed out with the morning paper, and lies live online forever. They are archived, streamed, clipped, memed, and resurfaced endlessly. A dramatized portrayal can become, for millions of viewers, the definitive version of a real person's life. They think that that's history. That's right, Yeah, so that I mean, that's exactly like I wish I knew darrel Leanna, so I could give her a huge hug, but she she wrote about, was encapsulated my experience to a te. Yeah, So where are you now in the healing process for you and for your family? You're supporting yourself, You're supporting your children. Have you started to look for work again?

1:19:00 As Andy Byron I heard has gotten offers from other places, lots of interest, lots of interest, And I think. He is the luxury of staying silent, and he can go back to work when he's ready. I don't. I feel I have to remind myself I'm not on trial, but I have to in order for me to get back on my feet, I have to come out and explain. And I think that's a stark difference between the man and the woman in this situation. I have to explain and explain and justify. And I feel like people when I speak up, they think I'm trying to be famous. If I don't speak, I must be guilty. So I'm trying to figure out the right balance there. And for me, I'm you know, I'm raising my kids alone. I'm financially responsible for my kids alone, and I need to get back to work. Yeah, Because people are going to criticize you for it, like, why are you talking?

1:19:41 Talk? I'm trying to prolong my fifteen minutes of fame. If I'm not talking, I'm you know. Yeah, So again, you decided to talk because because I felt, like I said in the beginning, like I can't stay silent and accept what has happened. And I do feel like it's important that people understand the real story and also how harmful it is to just make assumptions and judge and feed and fuel something that created this narrative. But you're so right, you know, I knew that Andrew had Andrew, your husband that you're getting a divorce from, had made a statement saying that you all were separated at the time. But you're right, we never heard from Andy Byron. And if Andy Byron had done that, it would have changed everything. I think, Yes, that's right, that's right.

1:20:28 Don't y'all think so everybody would have thought, oh, they're both separated, Okay, still her boss, still HR. Still not great, but a lot less interesting to the general public. Yeah, love, And I think I do think, you know, Chris Martin being a celebrity and that adding to it, I think helped with this. You know, this thing going viral for sure. I think when you bring a celebrity into the mix with private people, I think it gives it more. Yeah, and before we go, I said to you backstage, which I do with all interviews that are important. All interviews are important, but not as important as you wanting to make this state me here. I always ask people before every show, and I've been doing this since nineteen eighty nine. Actually, I ask people before we go out, what is your intention? Because I want you to be able to fulfill exactly the reason that you came.

1:21:23 Thank you. I'm glad that you came. I'm glad that you are willing to have your first and you say only interview with me. But most important, I want you to be able to say and fully not get home and say, oh I should have said, oh, she didn't ask me? What is it you feel that you need to say or that you want people to know before we leave. Yeah, I want people to know that I'm just a regular person. I'm a private person. I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to be famous, and I have no experience dealing with all of this, and I'm just I'm a mom that takes my kids to school and pick them up at practices and tries to juggle work and where I was work in parenting, and I'm with someone's daughter and sister and friend. And I really want people to understand what happened and what harm it does to real people's lives when you mindlessly fuel a fire like this.

1:22:20 It's incredibly dangerous and I'm so grateful I have the tools I have that I can sit here and talk about it, because so many people don't make it through it, and it's tragic, and I just I want people to be kind, and I you know, it's especially when. Women to women. I know you were really she felt that there were other women who came out and should have been more supportive. You felt, Yeah, I just think we're holding each other back, like let's stop. And I think it's a conversation that needs to be had over and over right now, like what is going on with us as a gender that give that you know, we take such pleasure in holding each other back and hurting each other. Yeah, it's really I heard you were upset when there was a commercial that Gwyneth did, Gwyneth Paltrow, Yeah.

1:23:01 Yeah, that was really disappointing to me. I felt like Gwyneth someone whose company is founded on or framed around uplifting women and women's well being, and she doesn't need the money. I don't know why she felt she needed to throw gas on the fire and get involved in all of this. Was it just felt really hypocritical to me and unnecessary. And I think, you know, I don't want to let Ryan Reynolds off the hook either. He produced the ad, he created it, and his wife has just gone through something really similar over the last year, and I find it really kind of astounding that he thought this was a great way to lead. You know. Well, I will tell you that I called Gwyneth and I asked her about this, and so this is an official statement, but I did ask her if it was okay if I shared what she shared with me, and she said that she was told that you and Andy Byron had signed off on that commercial, and she said she would have done it if she hadn't heard that you had signed off on the commercial.

1:24:04 Had you signed off on the commercial? No, Yeah, And she communicated that to me as. Well, okay, because she also said I was going to say, she also said that she sent you a sent you an email and that she hadn't heard back from the email. So I just wanted to say that, Okay, thank you. Okay. So when that commercial came out, did you feel that that was just fuel on the fire? Absolutely? I mean it made everything in that moment, and for you know, ensuing days or weeks, it made everything harder. It was made it a lot harder for my kids too. I think when when a celebrity gets involved like that, that's their teenagers. Like I said, they know who she is, they know and it made it just added to it in a way that was so unnecessary. But people have their own needs and I can't speculate us to what those are.

1:24:55 So it happened, and I can. Just And you're saying that you've been most disappointed by the reaction from other women. That's been the biggest thing for me and I I don't know. I wish I could fix it. I wish I could understand, And honestly, I'd love to sit with some of these women that are so angry at me and really listen and try to understand what it is about me or what is what could I have what would they like to have seen? You know, I don't know. I'd love to have a real conversation about what it is that makes them so I can make that happen if. You, Yeah too, I really would love it. I'm being deadly serious, I don't I have a real need to try to understand and have empathy for people that are hurting. And I'm feeling so much hurt that I I can't fix it, but I would love to understand it. That would help me heal too, to better understand why why people are so angry?

1:25:43 Yeah, is there anybody here who had seen the video who was angry? Yes? So were you one of those angry people? I wasn't angry at you. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw that video was everything that in darkness comes to light. And I passed judgment and I take ownership for that. It was not It wasn't nice, and it's not the type of example that I should make for my children as a mom. I empathize with your plight tremendously, because unfortunately, children are the casualties of these They take the brunt of a lot of this. Yeah, But one thing.

1:26:24 That I think is really important, and I was the woman who was at home and who didn't know okay after seventeen years of marriage, So when I saw that, it really hit home. Yeah. But the most important. Thing that I've learned through my journey is that the only person that can define who I am is me. Y's right, that's right. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's really true. But I also as a person who is you know, throughout the internet, you know, people say horrible things. There's no need horrible horror, horrible things all the time. And it is very, very different.

1:27:08 If you're up on a jumper trom that becomes the most watched video of the entire. Year, it is I and I. There is that distinction. But for a person who's going through a very public situation in their own microcosm, which is a JumboTron for them, it's different. But again, so my apologies for the judgment that I passed based on what I had read. Because you didn't know that you was separated. I didn't know that you were separating. I know that he was separating. No, it was because that's not I went by the narror. That's a major factor. But irrespective of. That, I would have never ever, ever said something mean or wished death like that's just that's just unacceptable.

1:27:48 Yeah, I think that's that this is Thank you so much for sharing that, and thank you so much for being willing to admit that you were in judgment, because the whole world was actually and I would have to say that in this moment, I think it's really important for we as the human species to. Look at how we are. Participating in the comments and the global discussions, because does a person deserve death threats because they made a mistake. Think of all the mistakes we've made in our lives. Think of all the things you wish had not been seen, or you wish you hadn't have done that or said that or whatever, and it gets, you know, replicated three hundred billion times, and now people are threatening your life and the life of your children, and they're parked outside your house and your number is all over the world.

1:28:41 I mean, just think about that for a moment. Yeah, I am really sorry that you had to go through that. Thank you. Thank you for telling me to talk about it, and I know it took it a lot for you to do this. Today, I do have to say, if I can interrupt it, I'm sorry at the center of the trauma for me is how women have treated me. And it was really scary to come here and sit in the center of a room full of primarily women just kind of looking at me like this is really really terrifying. Yeah, but I have to say, like, I do feel a lot of warmth in the room, so I want to thank the people here. It was almost I could almost couldn't do it because of the audience. And you still said yes. Well, my daughter told.

1:29:21 Me yesterday morning when I dropped her at school, and I was like, I'm so nervous, and she's like, Mom, this will be like therapy for you. You can do it. I was like, oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, it does feel good. Well, it does feel good. It does feel good. So I thank you for allowing me to be your first interview. Thank you.