Oprah and Kristin Cabot in an Exclusive Interview about the Coldplay Kiss Cam

Summary

The Oprah Podcast

Episode: Oprah and Kristin Cabot – An Exclusive Interview About the Coldplay Kiss Cam

Date: March 17, 2026
Host: Oprah Winfrey
Guest: Kristin Cabot

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Overview

In this deeply personal and revealing episode, Oprah Winfrey sits down with Kristin Cabot, the central figure in the viral “Coldplay Kiss Cam” incident, for her first and only on-camera interview. The interview explores the human cost behind viral fame, public shaming, and the internet’s tendency towards judgment, especially when it centers on women. Kristin speaks openly about the night that changed her life, the aftermath, and the challenges faced by her and her family. The conversation addresses themes of resilience, empathy, misogyny, online hate, and the disproportionate scrutiny faced by women.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Most Watched Video of the Year

• The Viral Moment: Kristin, then Head of HR at a tech company, was seen on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in the arms of her boss and CEO, Andy Byron. The 15-second clip, broadcast with a cheeky remark by Coldplay's Chris Martin, became the most viewed video of 2025: “It has been watched 300 billion times. Doesn’t that shock you?" (Oprah, 01:34)
• Public Reaction: The video sparked countless memes, global recreations, and an avalanche of both lighthearted and hateful attention. (Oprah, 01:34–02:02)

2. Kristin’s Backstory: What Led to That Night

• Quick Recap: Kristin and her boss, Andy, both confided in each other about their respective marital dissolutions in the months leading up to the concert. Their friendship deepened into mutual romantic feelings. (Kristin, 04:56–07:20)
• Work Relationship and Ethics: As Head of HR, Kristin was aware of the professional risks and states they planned to go to the board of directors about their relationship and change reporting lines. (Kristin, 08:43–09:39)

  "We wanted to propose to our board of directors that would change the reporting structure." (Kristin, 09:08)

• The Night of the Concert: Friends invited Kristin, and she invited Andy. Her estranged husband was also at the concert, a detail unknown to the public until this interview. (Kristin, 11:05–12:19)

3. The Viral Moment & Its Immediate Fallout

• Caught on Camera: Kristin describes the horror of seeing herself on the Jumbotron; her initial worry was for her estranged husband and her professional reputation.

  “My immediate thought was, oh my God, my husband's in the building… 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." (Kristin, 17:20–18:19)

• Aftermath at the Concert: Kristin and Andy left the area, regrouped, and decided to contact their board immediately. (Kristin, 20:31–21:45)
• Going Viral: By the next morning, Kristin was alerted by friends and her (soon to be ex-) husband that the video had taken over the internet. Neither she nor Andy was prepared for the tsunami of attention. (Kristin, 25:05–26:33)

4. The Human Cost of Viral Fame

• Toxic Attention: The intensity and volume of hate, particularly toward Kristin, was staggering: death threats, harassment, doxxing, and detailed public criticism of her personal life, appearance, and career.

  “It wasn't a mistake that I deserved to die for. It wasn't a mistake that deserved people threatening me and threatening my children." (Oprah, 23:01)

• Professional Consequences: Kristin resigned, despite her board’s support after an internal investigation found no wrongdoing, feeling the environment was too toxic to return. (Kristin, 26:59–27:48)

5. Exploring Why Public Judgment Focused on Kristin

• Gendered Scrutiny: Kristin notes the criticism targeted mostly her, not Andy. She highlights how instantly the social narrative attached stereotypical labels to her ("slut," "homewrecker," "gold digger," etc.).

  “Every single interaction I had in person, and there were many, were all women." (Kristin, 32:11) "No one… questioned… Wow. Did he become a CEO by sleeping his way to the top? No. And that's all anyone would say about me." (Kristin, 46:46)

• Women Tearing Down Women: Kristin is most hurt by the vehemence from other women and calls for deeper self-examination:

  "I just think we're holding each other back… Why are we eating each other alive?" (Kristin, 56:23)

• The Power of Narrative Gaps: Both Oprah and Kristin reflect that the absence of context in viral clips leads to all-consuming, often cruel, assumptions by the public.

  “We were all united in the judgment… without knowing the story behind the story.” (Oprah, 29:10)

6. Impact on Family and Children

• Children’s Experience: Kristin’s teenagers faced trauma and social fallout, often witnessing harassment alongside their mother. Difficulties included paparazzi, doxxing, and hostile encounters in their community. (Kristin, 37:05–38:08)

  “They were struck by how horrific grownups were acting.” (Kristin, 44:29)

• Kristin’s Guilt: She differentiates between guilt (for effect on her family) and shame (for actions she knows she did not commit).

  “I felt tremendous guilt for the effect it was having on my family, and I felt responsible for that. But… I knew the mistake I made... but… it doesn't deserve the treatment that I got.” (Kristin, 38:15)

7. Online Hate & Real-World Effects

• Harassment: Kristin describes the psychological toll of being the focus of the world’s scorn, with her address and phone number publicized, resulting in around-the-clock harassment, including death threats. (Kristin, 39:31–41:37)
• Career Disruption: Despite internal support, Kristin’s professional identity and hard-earned reputation are destroyed by a mob narrative.

  "For that to be a whole entire narrative to be written that takes that away from me, felt. It just gutted me in a way that I can't explain." (Kristin, 42:02)

8. Responsibility and the Viral Economy

• The Role of Technology: Kristin notes how viral drama feeds algorithms and tech company profits, with little accountability for the human cost.

  “The more pain someone like me is in, the more money they're going to make and it fuels it and feeds it." (Kristin, 49:57)

• Why Speak Out?: Kristin says she cannot let silence be mistaken for acceptance or guilt, and wants to highlight the real-life consequences of mindless participation in public shaming.

  “Silence is acceptance.” (Kristin, 03:27) “If I talk, I prolong my 15 minutes of fame. If I’m not talking, I must be guilty… I felt like it’s important that people understand the real story and also how harmful it is to just make assumptions…” (Kristin, 53:20)

9. The Double Standard: Andy Byron’s Absence from Scrutiny

• Lack of Accountability: Andy Byron, the other party in the video, remained largely out of the spotlight, received job offers, and issued no public statement, in stark contrast to Kristin’s ordeal.

  “I feel like I have to remind myself I’m not on trial, but… in order to… get back on my feet, I have to come out and explain... That’s a stark difference between the man and the woman.” (Kristin, 52:47)

• Kristin’s Disappointment: She ended ties with Andy after discovering he was not fully honest about his marital status.

  “There was a big miss on honesty and integrity… He wasn't the person he represented himself to be to me.” (Kristin, 46:59 overall / 47:16)

10. Memorable Audience Exchange

• Reflection & Accountability: An audience member acknowledges passing judgment based on incomplete information and apologizes, highlighting the pervasiveness of snap judgments and the need for empathy.

  “As a mom, I empathize with your plight tremendously… But one thing that I think is really important... the only person that can define who I am is me.” (Audience, 59:31–60:28)

11. Healing, Empathy, & Moving Forward

• Lessons Learned: Kristin expresses a desire to use her experience to foster empathy and address why women attack each other online.

  “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?" (Kristin, 49:59–50:30)

• The Permanency of Online Shaming: Cites Daryl Hannah’s observation that in the digital age, reputational harm is endlessly perpetuated, not “lining birdcages” and fading away as it did with print.

  “In the digital age, stories do not disappear… They are archived, streamed, clipped, memed and resurfaced endlessly…” (Kristin quoting Daryl Hannah, 51:44–52:21)

• Looking for Work: Kristin is eager to rebuild professionally but notes the lingering stigma she faces, contrasted with Andy’s relative ease.

  “He has the luxury of staying silent and he can go back to work when he’s ready… I have to come out and explain…” (Kristin, 52:46)

• Call for Kindness: Through visible emotion, she pleads for greater compassion, especially among women.

  “Let’s stop holding each other back… Why are we eating each other alive?” (Kristin, 56:23)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the first touch:

  “That was the culmination point of feelings… four to six weeks… that was the first time you'd actually shared any kind of physical touch.”
  (Kristin & Oprah, 07:09–07:31)

• On the aftermath:

  “I almost couldn't do it because of the audience.” (Kristin, 62:34)
  "My daughter told me yesterday morning... 'Mom, this will be like therapy for you. You can do it.'" (Kristin, 63:01)

• On the High Noon drinks and criticism:

  "I simply mentioned it [drinking] to set the tone of the vibe… had I known… suddenly I'm blaming it on alcohol and suddenly none of that is true."
  (Kristin, 14:11)

• On women and judgment:

  “I think I was told that 90% of the online comments and hate came from women. Every single interaction I had in person…and there were many, were all women.”
  (Kristin, 32:11)

• On what she would have wanted from her former boss:

  “The entire trajectory… would have changed if [Andy] would have just made a quick statement to say, ‘my wife and I were separated at the time of the concert’… but I was still left… the tone changed a little bit, but… I was still left the home wrecker.”
  (Kristin, 48:30–48:52)

• On the need for empathy and kindness:

  “I want people to know that I’m just a regular person… 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. It’s incredibly dangerous.”
  (Kristin, 55:28)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:29 – The scale of the viral moment, initial impact
• 04:56–07:20 – Kristin’s perspective on her relationship with Andy
• 11:05–12:19 – Estranged husband’s presence at the concert
• 17:20–18:19 – Kristin's Jumbotron reaction
• 23:01 – Oprah on proportionality of the response: “It wasn’t a mistake that I deserved to die for.”
• 32:11 – On women as the primary critics
• 37:05–38:08 – On the impact to Kristin’s kids
• 39:31–41:37 – Intensity of harassment after doxing
• 46:59–48:52 – Kristin on ending communication with Andy and why
• 49:59–50:30 – Role of tech companies and algorithmic amplification of suffering
• 56:23 – “Let’s stop holding each other back…”

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Final Thoughts & Audience Reactions

The episode closes with a direct audience dialogue, some admitting their own judgments, reinforcing that the viral suffering of one can also be a mirror for collective self-examination.

“Think of all the mistakes we’ve made in our lives… and now people are threatening your life and the life of your children…” (Oprah, 61:30)

Kristin receives warmth and support from the room, despite her fears, and leaves with a call for empathy and a desire for meaningful change in how women, and society, treat one another in moments of viral scrutiny.

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Tone:
Deeply empathetic, honest, raw, and occasionally darkly humorous. Both Oprah and Kristin create space for vulnerability, accountability, and reflection—calling for more humanity in the digital age.

Transcript

[Kristin Cabot]

Either they're having an affair or they're very shy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

This would be the only on camera interview that you're planning to give. Why did you decide to be here today?

[Kristin Cabot]

So Coldplay's Kiss Cam just broke the Internet.

[Audience Member]

You've seen this video, right, 1,000 times? Yes, I think everyone has seen it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Take us back to the night of the Coldplay concert. Growing fallout from the Kiss Cam moments

[Kristin Cabot]

seen around the world, sparking dozens of memes and videos.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It is crazy how big this is. That was the first time you all had physically touched. That's what you said to us earlier. You hadn't even touched.

[Kristin Cabot]

This has captured my imagination so much. I have been watching it like if it was porn, over and over and over again.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I did not know the crucial part of that story that was missing from all of the TikToks. I'm going to let you share that. Sometimes people call just to harass her

[Kristin Cabot]

and call her a home wrecker.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do you still talk to Andy Byron, your former boss? Death threats. Who's sending death threats over this? Why do you think there was so much hate? Hi there and thank you for joining me here on the Oprah podcast. My guest today is Kristin Cabot. And while you may not recognize her name, I am guessing that you will recognize her face from the most viewed video of 2025. The so called Coldplay Kiss Cam.

[Kristin Cabot]

Either they're having an affair or they're just very shy.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Has been watched 300 billion times. Doesn't that shock you? It shocked me. And when I was told, your mouth is open, that's exactly, that's exactly what I did. When I was told it'd been watched 300 billion times, I said, how is that possible? There's only 8 billion of us on the planet. Well, it's because people watched it over and over and over. It was made into countless TikTok memes and recreated at sporting events and concerts around the world. And in just 15 seconds of footage, Kristen found herself in the eye of a public spectacle. A storm that swept the Internet in a matter of hours. And she is the woman seen on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in Boston in the arms of her boss and CEO, Andy Byron. And Kristin was the head of HR. And for Kristen, those 15 viral seconds, really 15 viral seconds, opened up an unstoppable floodgate of people mocking her, vitriol and even death threats. And this past December, she first broke her silence to Lisa Miller of the New York Times. And the headline read, the ritual shaming of the woman at the Coldplay concert. Kristin Cabot. Welcome. Thank you for agreeing to do this.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you for having me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Thank you for doing. Thank you. So after reading Lisa Miller's article, I asked my team to reach out to you and you were hesitant. But then we had a conversation on Zoom.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And 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?

[Kristin Cabot]

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, 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 it can really do.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So, yes, you and I spoke on Zoom. I said, 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 and you're 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 going to let you share that. So take us back to the night of the Coldplay concert and the decision to go to the Coldplay concert.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, that's a great question. So I had been going through. I'll go a little bit before that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, go before that.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 Byron, my boss at the time, he and I had a very close working relationship. For anyone that's worked in tech in 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 a high growth startup that was growing at 100% 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 around the time that Andrew and I, my husband, had separated, and Andy. The same name, so forgive me. Try to keep up here.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Andy and I had gone out to grab sandwiches during the workday, and he. 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 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did you both talk about what it was like going through the separation?

[Kristin Cabot]

We did. That was where we started to build a bit of a stronger connection. And I was really surprised when he told me. We didn't talk a lot about our personal lives prior to that, so I didn't expect to hear that from him.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right.

[Kristin Cabot]

He had been married a long time, so I just assumed all was well. So we. Leading up to the concert, 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Were you having more lunches? Was it becoming.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah. Yes, we were. 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 can share that. So we developed feelings for each other during that time.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. Because I'm. Yeah. Were you attracted to each other?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes, absolutely. And that's why, like, you know, when people would say, oh, they didn't look like friends on the video, like, that was the culmination point of feelings that had developed over the course of, you know, four to six weeks, I would say.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 touch. Physical touch, yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So at the Coldplay concert, first time I touched you.

[Kristin Cabot]

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. They had two extra seats. I never go out, so it's kind of a joke amongst my friends, let alone on a weeknight. I'm 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 weeknight. Like, I'm gonna go see. I love Coldplay. I'm gonna go. Or I loved Coldplay, but that kind of got ruined for me, I'll be honest. Like, not the biggest fan anymore, but. And it was like such a no brainer to invite Andy. We just. When I say we would talk like 10 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I just want to be clear, what time had you spent together before Lunches.

[Kristin Cabot]

We would lunches at work.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So everything had been business up until the Coldplay concert.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Whoa.

[Kristin Cabot]

Absolutely. Though we had had a lot of personal conversations and had acknowledged that we had feelings for each other.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Kristin Cabot]

Also, it was becoming apparent to me that we were putting ourselves in a situation where it was gonna get risky from a work standpoint. I mean, I reported to him, my role is to actually be aware of those things happening at work and flagging when it might cause a problem.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Kristin Cabot]

It was more than a whisper. It was like a real conversation where we sat down and said, we have to figure out a plan for this. Because 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Didn't you tell me that you were thinking about going to the board or

[Kristin Cabot]

you all were going to go to the board?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Kristin Cabot]

We ironically met probably five or six days before the concert. We had a lunch that was a lengthy lunch to talk about this and to make a plan.

[Oprah Winfrey]

The plan was to go to the board.

[Kristin Cabot]

Go to the board and let them know that we had developed feelings for one another and that we wanted to change that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It was consensual.

[Kristin Cabot]

It was consensual, which is an important point, 100%. And we wanted to propose a plan for what might work to make, you know, take this reporting line out of the equation.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Meaning you reporting to him.

[Kristin Cabot]

Meaning no longer reporting to him. No longer reporting to one of our investors. Something like that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

All right, that makes sense.

[Kristin Cabot]

Seems like it made sense at the time.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Felt. It felt like the right thing to do and. Yeah. And then I got the invitation to Coldplay. I invited him to come. It was sort of a non decision. It was just kind of like, hey, we got tickets, do you want to come? And he's like, great, let's go. And I thought, you know, we've kept it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Why didn't you ask one of your girlfriends?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 tickets.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah. And it just. He's the one I wanted to hang out with. We had a blast together. Ok. Ok. And we'd 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Got it. So he said yes.

[Kristin Cabot]

He said yes, obviously.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Mm. And this was the first time socially you all had done something socially other than meeting for lunches and discussing business

[Kristin Cabot]

and grabbing like drinks after work with colleagues and things like that. Okay. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So you get to the concert and what happened?

[Kristin Cabot]

Well, I was walking into the concert and my daughter messaged me and said, oh, it's so great that you and Andrew are both at Coldplay. So she let me know that my estranged husband was also at the concert.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 you all know that? Okay, all right. Or that her husband was there? This is the thing. So you get texted from one of your children?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah. My daughter was 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 crosses.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Will you run into him?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, if I run into him. But then I was like, I'm in gillette Stadium, there's 55,000 people here. I'm probably not going to run into him. But doesn't matter. I mean, that would have been better at the end of the day if I just run into him. But it's. You know, he knows how closely Andy and I work together. He knows we socially got lunches and got drinks. It was fine.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So he knew that there was a relationship there?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

He just.

[Kristin Cabot]

He knows the nature of my work and the way the. Really. I've shared desks with the CEOs I've worked with. Like, it's just a very close. And so it didn't matter to me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. I gotta get to the moment.

[Kristin Cabot]

You gotta get there.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You all hadn't touched. That's what you said earlier. You hadn't even touched.

[Kristin Cabot]

Well, we did that evening before. We got. I mean, we started to touch before it was on camera, but that. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. But that was the first time you all had physically touched each other. It's like, correct. Okay.

[Kristin Cabot]

Other than like a, you know, tap, you know, when you're chatting with someone and you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So what made you do it then?

[Kristin Cabot]

I had a really big crush on him. Oprah. And so did he. I mean, we. 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, you know? It felt good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're giving out a key point here that you shared with me on the Zoom. High Noons.

[Kristin Cabot]

I would love to talk about the High Noons.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Can we take a moment?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Look at Gayle going. What is that? Gayle has never drank anything other than what I like. A good Shirley tilt. She likes a good Shirley Tilton. So she just looked. I saw you. What is a High Noon?

[Kristin Cabot]

I want to talk about the High Noons. 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 Noons, and we were dancing and we got swept

[Oprah Winfrey]

up in the morning. All you need is a couple.

[Kristin Cabot]

I only had two, so.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, I mean, two. That make you feel like. Well, that's Gail. Gayle 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 ton. Okay, so it does make you, Gail. Alcohol makes you feel a little looser, right? Frisky. Frisky. Frisky. Not even frisky. It's just. It's just a little looser.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, 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, it's summer, a couple high noons, you're dancing, you're having fun. Everybody, maybe except for you, Gayle has done that and knows what I mean. Like, it's a good. It's just an easy, like a fun feeling. And that was the vibe that we had, and that's why I shared it. And by the way, I think, well,

[Oprah Winfrey]

Gail Willis said, do you have a lemonade? And could you add a dash of cranberry juice?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So wild. 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

It felt really good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 sectioned off area where there's no seats. It's general admission in this section, and it holds about 250 people. So we were in that area and we were kind of up at the front near the railing, but we were 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 put our hands on each other. It wasn't that. It just was a natural.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so let's go to that moment that we have all seen. 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?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What was the song?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yellow.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. That's Gail's. I love yellow.

[Kristin Cabot]

I used to love yellow. Gayle. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

After a quick break, Kristin Cabot takes us back to that moment she saw herself on the Jumbotron. And what immediately went through her mind during the minutes and hours afterwards. That's next. It's tax season, and at Lifelock. We know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one. You need to billions. That's the amount of money in refunds the IRS has flagged for possible identity fraud. Now here's another big number. 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it. Guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. Welcome back to the Oprah podcast and my exclusive interview with Kristin Cabot, the woman caught on the Coldplay kiss cam with her then boss and CEO. A viral video that's been seen around the globe more than 300 billion times. This is her one and only on camera interview. She says. So let's get back to it. So you're swaying to the song and then you suddenly see yourself on the Jambatron. You turned around. Mm, he ducked. Okay, so you see yourself. Take us to that moment.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 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. And that was my first thought when I saw myself in that moment.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Isn't there an instance when you were looking at yourself on the jumbotron? Because I remember Gail and I had gone to an event. Gail Maria Shriver and I for the Pope. And there's Gail on the Remember you saw yourself and you said, who's that red haired woman? And I go, that red haired black woman?

[Kristin Cabot]

That would be you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so is there a moment when you say to yourself, oh, my God, that's me?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes. Yeah, yeah. There was like a split second where it was like almost. I mean, to me it's like surreal. I can't even really remember, but I do remember looking and being like, oh my God. Like I said, worse than that. I mean, 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did you even hear what was.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 with my friends, too, and we didn't hear Chris Martin say, we're going to pan the audience. Like, we never heard him warn 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. I don't remember from. It was a blur after that night. But I didn't know that at all. I whipped around like Oprah. If we were at a Celtics game and we got put on the jumbotron, I'm going to 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And your first thought was Andrew, your

[Kristin Cabot]

husband and my job and your job. Yeah. And irony of the whole thing, or that naivete of the whole thing is the entire ride home, we were in an SUV with a group of us. 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 on my hands.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Why were you worried if you were already separated?

[Kristin Cabot]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

He was there with somebody.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 over well.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so your 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And then did you all immediately leave the schoolette?

[Kristin Cabot]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Did you leave with your friends or did you.

[Kristin Cabot]

No, 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. What could this. What is going to happen? And. 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 in 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

[Oprah Winfrey]

and what were they thinking?

[Kristin Cabot]

They were just like, oh, my God, I cannot believe this. 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? And I was like, no. And then my friend Elena looked at me and was like, is that what we're saying? Like, are we saying no? That wasn't you? Like, what do we. Should we huddle up on this? But we just didn't know what. We had no concept that this was going to happen.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so you were worried about your husband, who you're separating from.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And the woman that he's there?

[Kristin Cabot]

I wasn't really worried about that. I was just. I didn't want to embarrass him, and I didn't want to embarrass him.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're worried about your husband? You're worried about your husband that you are now separated from. Was he worried about anything?

[Kristin Cabot]

No. You mean. Do you mean Andy?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Andy. Andy Byron?

[Kristin Cabot]

Oh, yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What did he say he was worried about?

[Kristin Cabot]

I mean, I don't want to speak for him, but I think, you know, we live. I think, you know, he's going through his own separation and divorce. I think he's not looking to embarrass.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And he's your boss.

[Kristin Cabot]

That was the other big. I mean, it's really not. It's really bad in our roles to have been caught in that position. And that was. You know, we do live in the area. The company was based in New York, but we've both had 25 or so 30 years in our career in that area. And no one.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 months ago now. 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. But it wasn't a mistake that I deserved to die for.

[Kristin Cabot]

Correct.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Kristin Cabot]

That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do you still feel that? That it was a mistake?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 an unimaginable price for that. 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 from.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so let's go back to it. So just walk us through it. You all leave. You're like, what just happened? Yes. And then what happened?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 wringing over Andrew seat. I mean it was just ridiculous. Looking at it now, what I was most worried about, Andy was pretty quiet in the car.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

And our friends, nobody thought it was like, oh, that was such bad luck. Like, hopefully no one really saw anything.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so tell everybody. You get home and you thinking, we are going to tell the board tomorrow. We're gonna go to the board and tell them.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So you all come. Didn't you come up with a.

[Kristin Cabot]

He came to my apartment. Andy did.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes.

[Kristin Cabot]

And we were like, we have to

[Oprah Winfrey]

come up with a statement.

[Kristin Cabot]

We have to talk to the board immediately.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Did you come up with a statement?

[Kristin Cabot]

No, we. We drafted an email to together to send to 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 the west coast. So we wanted to make sure they

[Oprah Winfrey]

will drafted an email to send to the board.

[Kristin Cabot]

That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And then you go home and you go to sleep. Go to sleep.

[Kristin Cabot]

Again, not really thinking. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And in the middle of the night.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 the same.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, of course.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right, so your teenagers are not his children.

[Kristin Cabot]

Correct.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes. But your children have a great relationship with him.

[Kristin Cabot]

Incredible.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Cause you all had been married how many years?

[Kristin Cabot]

Less than two years. Okay. We met during COVID and he immediately built an incredible bond with my kids. And they're very close still today.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay, so how did you find out that the video had blown up the Internet.

[Kristin Cabot]

I'm trying to remember. It's, like such a wild. That next day was so hard.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So when Andrew calls you and says,

[Kristin Cabot]

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've never had TikTok or anything like that, but he let me know.

[Oprah Winfrey]

But you didn't know what it was.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah. And then in the morning, by 7

[Oprah Winfrey]

or 8am can you all imagine this? Can you imagine it?

[Kristin Cabot]

Just. My phone started. You know, a lot of phone calls started coming in from my friends. All my close friends were just like, you know, this is. Something's going on here. And I wish I could remember how long it took from being kind of a problem to like, realizing it was

[Oprah Winfrey]

no need to hit send to the board.

[Kristin Cabot]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

He resigned.

[Kristin Cabot]

He hadn't resigned yet. He did that a few days later. Okay.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And then. Did they offer you. They wanted you to stay?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yes, they wanted you to stay?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes, they did.

[Oprah Winfrey]

How are you gonna stay?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 a human. I made a really poor choice, but we're building something incredible and, like, let's get back to it and hope that they would be okay with that. But 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 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 support. But it wasn't viable. It wasn't fair to ask the employees.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So why do you think that this went off like a. Like a bomb? Was it Chris Martin's comments in that moment that maybe you were having an affair? Was it the fact that Andy Byron ducked or that you turned around? Was it that he was the CEO and you're the head of hr? What is it?

[Kristin Cabot]

What is it? I think it was. I've thought a lot about that. I think it was a whole combination. It was a combination of all of those things I felt 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 this, There's a life there, and it is incredibly destructive. And listen, I've seen funny things in sentimaround2. Probably not giving it a ton of thought before this happened. I'm thinking very differently now than I was, but I think people thought it was funny. I think our world is news is a really sad thing to watch. I think we are constantly inundated with bad news. And this is.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, I've heard some people say that that video, seen 300 times by only 8 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 advised you that everything would blow over in three days. Who the hell told you that?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 gonna be open to hearing from you right now. They're not gonna 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 I. This is not my world. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Right after this break, Kristin Cabot explains why she thinks she's been the target of so much hate and vitriol and why her former boss, Andy Byron was not. That's next.

[Kristin Cabot]

This episode is brought to you by. Peloton Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus. Powered by Peloton iq, with real time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go. Explore the new peloton cross training tread [e-mail] welcome back, listeners.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It seems everybody on the planet watched that viral Coldplay Kiss cam video. Kristin Kabat, the woman in that video, agreed to talk with me here on the Oprah podcast for what she says is her one and only interview. Let's get back to our exclusive conversation. Why do you think there was so much hate?

[Kristin Cabot]

That's been one of the hardest things for me to reconcile because 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. Like, 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, I just think people hurt people hurt people. And I think, well, there's a lot

[Oprah Winfrey]

of hurt people 300 billion times. So the New York Times wrote that she's been called, 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, eat 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. That's right.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, that's right. 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 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 at work, I've been really intentional about the women that work with and for me, bringing them along in their career, giving opportunity, mentoring, and helping them, it's just not. It was such a shock to me. I think I was told that 90% of the online comments and hate came from women. Every single interaction I had in person, and there were many, were all women like you said.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You know, since we had our conversation, I was thinking about this, and I say this, you know, not just because Gayle is here, but it's pretty publicly known that Gayle went through a divorce and her husband had an affair. And Galloway says that there is 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 took my. That's where the hate is.

[Kristin Cabot]

I agree with that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And I also think that if you looked differently, you would have probably had another outcome. You know, I think you are the blonde ideal, the girl next door, all of that. Am I being truthful here or what? I think it's the whole package. It's not one thing, it's everything.

[Kristin Cabot]

I do think there was something, people attached to me that triggered things within themselves. I don't think, you know, now that I sit here, I don't think they don't know me. It can't really be me, but it's something I represent. And I. Yeah, 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 makes me feel a certain way or what. It's my own fears that are. That are not quite healed, I think, when I.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So the question is, did he get the same kind of vitriol Andy Byron, your boss, did? People were. People coming up to him?

[Kristin Cabot]

No, not at all.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Attacking him, Attacking his children?

[Kristin Cabot]

No.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

And I mean, just 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 for giving me crappy root or crappy highlights. And she got. And just everything about how I look to how I was dressed, to how I behaved, to, you know, sleeping my way to the top, to the gold digger, to this. You know, all the words that Lisa used. The husband stealer. Which, by the way, I just. That expression really bugs me. And I'm not trying to make light, obviously, of adultery. It's not that. But this notion of women 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. And for me, I was the face of all of this. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Your best friend, I heard, told you that these people hated you before they even knew anything about you. Do you think that's true? What do you think that is?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 gonna 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. So I'm trying to.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Cause you look like you look?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 tickets. It's probably what a lot of women worry about when their husbands are out on board. You know, I get that. I can understand that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. So you share custody of your two children with your first husband. And how has this impacted your children?

[Kristin Cabot]

This is the tough one. It was A nightmare.

[Oprah Winfrey]

How old are your kids?

[Kristin Cabot]

They're almost 15 and almost 17. So they're at an age where everything. You know, so they were 14 and

[Oprah Winfrey]

16 when this happened.

[Kristin Cabot]

14 and 16. We're still in it. They're doing really well. Tell us about the place.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You went someplace. You went someplace. And your daughter said, mom, can we just leave? Because.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 to. I tried. Tried to. Going out, you know, trying to go out. My daughter and I went to the pool. Big hat, 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. And 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. It's funny. The version of me before this concert, I would have marched right up to her and grabbed 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do you think that you were taking on the guilt and shame that other people were trying to put on you?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 my. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Can you share with us what those first, um, Hours, days, and then weeks were like? I mean, how. How low did you go?

[Kristin Cabot]

I. I mean, yeah, those. It was dark the first weekend after the concert. I. I rented an Airbnb and went up to the mountains in New Hampshire with my dog, thinking I was just gonna let it blow over and come back. I really didn't understand. Cause I. I cut 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 disappear for the weekend. But when I came Back to do

[Oprah Winfrey]

a self care day?

[Kristin Cabot]

I did, yeah. I was like, I'm just gonna regroup and relax and not leave.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You thought it would blow over in a few days, as you had been told?

[Kristin Cabot]

As I'd been told, yes. That definitely didn't happen. But I. I came back to my house. That 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 I don't know how people do that, but. So from that day, I returned, 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 my phone.

[Oprah Winfrey]

With your children home?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes, with my children home. My phone was ringing around the clock and just vile text messages and voicemails. That's probably a couple days in when the death threat started. But they were also just perverse, disgusting messages. I got emails constantly.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Were you afraid? Were you scared?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, I was really. I was terrified.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And your children were really scared because your children overheard you speaking to your mom.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 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, we're.

[Oprah Winfrey]

When your kids are hearing that you're getting death threats, kids think we're gonna lose our mom. Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Mm.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's what kids think.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what happened.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Kids think we're gonna lose our mom.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Then they have to now be afraid for you.

[Kristin Cabot]

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 in to taking care of me more than I'd like them to do at their age. Like, I've got it, you know, until this, 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

[Oprah Winfrey]

that, you know, in all this I mean, 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 cuts you.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 made you not want to get out of bed?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, it was. And there's actually a few. But the one that just came to mind first was the piece around sleeping my way to the top at work. 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 no. And I've been so intentional about how I move through my work life. I've never been involved with anyone I've worked with before. I have been working since I was 13 and 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 to be 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. I'm like, it's a great point. I don't. But I did.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's a great point. But when you're in the middle of it, it's hard to feel that way.

[Kristin Cabot]

That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

And it hurts like the, you know, and it's easy to say, oh, ignore the trolls, or ignore the. But it's really hard, you know, I mean, it's really hard to ignore that. And it gets really personal.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. Did you have family that were there for you?

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, my family's incredible. And I just. You asked earlier, like, how low did it get? And. But 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 25 year old version of myself, I would not be sitting here there's no way. Yeah, it was really horrific because.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, when you hear the number, I think it was you who told me, the 300 billion. When you hear the 300, how is that even though.

[Kristin Cabot]

And by the way, 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. Than, you know, different tabloid websites. But that 300 billion is on the websites alone. Yeah, it's really disturbing.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so how did you get your children through it? When your children. When you become the meme and everybody knows it's your mom, how did you get them through that?

[Kristin Cabot]

It was tough. I mean, we had a lot of conversation in the beginning, though. I mean, I was not momming to the best of my abilities. I was pretty broken down. We had. For better or 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 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 shy to come up to me in front of my kids. And I had a group of women that I was at my son's where he works. He works at a surf shop at the beach near our house. And a group of women surrounded my car 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. 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 grownups were acting. And that's a really hard thing for me to explain to kids that, you know, why. Because I didn't even understand.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Do they even understand why? Yeah, because how do you explain to them why the people are hating you so much?

[Kristin Cabot]

Right. I tried to explain to them kind of what you described. Like, I think I'm representative of something that touches 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 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Up next is Kristin Kabat still in touch with her former boss, astronomer CEO Andy Byron. She answers when we come back.

[Kristin Cabot]

Protein is now at Starbucks and it's

[Oprah Winfrey]

never tasted so good. You can add protein cold foam to

[Kristin Cabot]

your favorite drink or try one of

[Oprah Winfrey]

our new protein lattes or matcha.

[Kristin Cabot]

Try it today at Starbucks.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Welcome back to my exclusive interview with Kristen Cabot. Now two women in our audience share with Kristin Cabot what they learned from our conversation. Here we go. Do you still talk to Andy Byron, your former boss?

[Kristin Cabot]

No. I ended communication with Andy and met a. There was a big miss on honesty and integrity. He wasn't the person he represented himself to be to me. And lying is not a non negotiable for me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What does that mean?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 behind me.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You mean he wasn't separated? 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?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 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 wanna say that being left.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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 same thing unequivocally. Okay.

[Kristin Cabot]

Unequivocally.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So you believed when you were standing with him at the Coldplay concert that he was separated?

[Kristin Cabot]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

What would you have wanted him to do or say?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 changed a little bit. Okay, so she was separated, but he wasn't. So she's still a home wrecker.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. One moment and it's one moment and one split second decision can change the trajectory of anybody's life. Why do you. 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I could have gotten with something smaller. 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?

[Kristin Cabot]

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 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 are forwarding and liking and clicking, we are putting billions of dollars in their pockets.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You're just creating an algorithm and creating

[Kristin Cabot]

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, that needs to be looked at. I think I'm heartbroken at how women are treating other women. Like I'm. I wanna. 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?

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

And holding each other back? And why do we take such joy in seeing other people suffer? Yeah, it's really scary.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's so interesting. Once you've been through something like this, when you see somebody else going through creates an empathetic moment for you to want to reach out and say, I know what that's like. Or I.

[Kristin Cabot]

That'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 4 years old, receiving zillions of death threats because she was helping her dad, who's a radio personality, 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. I mean, it's just, it's happening all the time.

[Oprah Winfrey]

It's also my producer said that what Daryl Hannah recently released a statement about what was going on in the Kennedy love story.

[Kristin Cabot]

That's right.

[Audience Member]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

I actually brought. I wanted to share a quote if I could from that. I don't know if anyone has. If you haven't read her essay in the 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 Onassis used to say to her, like, there's gonna be horrible things in the news. It's gonna, you know.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Cause Dara Hannah was dating.

[Kristin Cabot]

Was dating John F. Kennedy Jr. And Jackie O said, people are gonna write horrible things about you, but don't worry about it. It'll be lining a birdcage tomorrow and people will, you know, the newspapers will be lining birdcages. Don't worry. And she wrote, and I quote, this was from on 6th 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

They think that that's history.

[Kristin Cabot]

That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

So that, I mean, that's exactly like, I wish I knew Darrell Hanna so I could give her a huge hug. But she. What she wrote about was encapsulated my experience to a T. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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? Has Andy Byron, I hear, has gotten offers from other places.

[Kristin Cabot]

Lots of interest.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Lots of interest.

[Kristin Cabot]

And I think he has the luxury of staying silent and he can go back to work when he's ready. I don't. I feel like 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 raising my kids alone. I'm financially responsible for my kids alone. And I need to get back to work.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, because people are gonna criticize you for, like, why are you talking?

[Kristin Cabot]

If I talk, I'm prolong my 15 minutes of fame. If I'm not talking, I'm, you know.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. So again, you decided to talk because.

[Kristin Cabot]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yes, that's right. That's right.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Don't y' all think so? Everybody would have thought, oh, they're both separated. Okay. Still her boss, still hr. Still not great. Still not good.

[Kristin Cabot]

But a lot less interesting to the general public, I think.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, a lot.

[Kristin Cabot]

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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. And before we go, I said to you backstage, which I do with all interviews that are important, and all interviews are important, but not as important as you wanting to make this statement here. I always ask people before every show, and I've been doing this since 1989, 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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, or, 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?

[Kristin Cabot]

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. 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 picks them up at practices and tries to juggle work and where I was, work in parenting. And I'm 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. 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. Because so many people don't make it through it. And it's tragic. And I just. I want people to, you know, just be kind and I, you know, it

[Oprah Winfrey]

sounds especially women to women. I know you were upset because you felt that there were other women who came out and should have been more supportive.

[Kristin Cabot]

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, you know, we take such pleasure in holding each other back and hurting each other. Yeah, it's really sad.

[Oprah Winfrey]

I heard you were upset when there was a commercial that Gwyneth did. Gwyneth Paltrow? Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

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. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, I will tell you that I called Gwyneth and I asked her about this. And so this isn't 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Mm.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And she said she wouldn't have done it if she hadn't heard that you had signed off on the commercial. Had you signed off on the commercial?

[Kristin Cabot]

Um, no.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

And she communicated that to me as well.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. Cause she also said. I was gonna 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.

[Kristin Cabot]

Mm. Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Okay. So when that commercial came out, did you feel that that was just fuel on the fire?

[Kristin Cabot]

Absolutely. I mean, it made everything. In that moment and for, you know, ensuing days, weeks, it made everything harder. It was. Made it a lot harder for my kids, too. I think when a celebrity gets involved like that, that's. They're teenagers, like I said, they know who she is. They know. And it just added to it in a way that was so unnecessary. But people have their own needs, and I can't speculate as to what those are. So it happened, and I can just.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And you're saying that you've been most disappointed by the reaction from other women?

[Kristin Cabot]

That's been the biggest thing for me, and 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 it is. What could I. 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 angry.

[Oprah Winfrey]

We can make that happen if you need to.

[Kristin Cabot]

I really would love it. I'm being deadly serious on this. 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 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. Yeah.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Is there anybody here who had seen the video who was angry? Yes. So were you one of those angry people?

[Audience Member]

I wasn't angry at you. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw that video was everything done 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. But one thing that I think is really important, and I was the woman who was at home and who didn't know, okay. After 17 years of marriage. So when I saw that, it really hit home. 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah, that's right.

[Kristin Cabot]

That's right. I love that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

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.

[Kristin Cabot]

There's no need for that.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Horrible, horrible, horrible things all the time. And it is very, very different if you're up on a jumbotron, that becomes the most watched video of the entire year.

[Audience Member]

It is. And 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.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Cause you didn't know that you were separated.

[Audience Member]

I didn't know that you were separated.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You didn't know that he was separ.

[Audience Member]

No, it was. Because that's not. I went by the narrative.

[Oprah Winfrey]

That's a major factor.

[Audience Member]

But irrespective of that, I would have never, ever, ever said something mean or wish death upon. Like, that's just. That's just unacceptable.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah. I think that for 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 done that or said that or whatever. And it gets, you know, replicated 300 billion times. And now people are threatening your life and the life of your children. They're parked outside your house and your number is all over the world. I mean, just think about that for a moment. Yeah. I am really sorry that you had to go through that.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to talk about it.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And I know it took a lot for you to do this today.

[Kristin Cabot]

I do have to say, if I can interrupt, and I'm sorry. At the center of the, like, 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. But I have to say, like, I do feel a lot of warmth in the room. So I want to thank the people here. This was almost. I almost couldn't do it because of the audience.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And you still said yes.

[Kristin Cabot]

Well, my daughter told 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. And I was like, oh, thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Yeah.

[Kristin Cabot]

Yeah, it does feel good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Well, it does feel good.

[Kristin Cabot]

It does feel good.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So I thank you for allowing me to be your first interview. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, those of you who are watching. I'll see you next time. Go well, everybody. Go well. Good job.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Good job.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Good job.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Good job. Good job. Well done. Well done. Well done. Well done. Well done. Well done. Well done. Yes. You can take our picture now. Yeah. You can take our picture now. Yeah. Kristen, I hope you'll let Coldplay again because honest to God.

[Kristin Cabot]

Oh, my God, Chris Martin, honestly, he's

[Oprah Winfrey]

one of the most empathetic people, and if he had known, he never would have done that. The problem is you both look like you had been busted.

[Kristin Cabot]

I know.

[Oprah Winfrey]

And so when you look like you've been busted, you know, we didn't. Those judgments weren't made out of nowhere. It's because both of you look, oh, my God, we've been caught. And if both.

[Kristin Cabot]

And we have. But just not for what you thought.

[Oprah Winfrey]

Not for what you thought. And you do wanna work again, right?

[Kristin Cabot]

I'm dying. I'm so bored. I. Like, I have. So I said to Gaylord, I have so much gas left in the tank, I'm dying to get back to work.

[Oprah Winfrey]

So he's gotten job offers and you haven't. That's. That's. Wow. But I do just wanna say, like,

[Audience Member]

me sitting here, I was getting chills from you, speaking, like, it really honestly, like, hearing your persp. You know, seeing it on social media, seeing all these different things and people making their own narratives, you speaking out. I'm sure all the women in this room feel this way, like, after hearing

[Oprah Winfrey]

your story, like, we empathize with you, like, it really does.

[Kristin Cabot]

Thank you. I'm like, wow. Thank you.

[Oprah Winfrey]

You really told the story. Yeah. You did a good job. You can subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody.