Last time I looked, the Coldplay affair involved two people

So why do the women involved get more moral judgement? Plus: lido swimming, good jewellery and some things to read

One minute you’re swaying along to your favourite Coldplay song, your arms intertwined with those of your lover. The next you’re a viral meme and the entire internet knows about your affair.

I’m sure I don’t need to catch you up on this, but a very quick recap. A couple were caught swaying together (in that hideous ‘him behind her’ stance that I have long banned my husband from adopting when we go to gigs) at a Coldplay concert in Boston by the ‘Jumbocam’ - a kind of kiss-cam thing that sounds as though it’s been renamed by Trump. Jumbocam! Bigly!

Anyway, the pair looked absolutely stricken and ducked/turned away from the camera, prompting Chris Martin to joke that they were either very shy or having an affair. Turns out it’s the latter: he’s Andy Byron, the CEO of AI firm Astronomer and she’s Kristin Cabot, his head of HR. They are both married to other people and have children.

They’re also now nailed on to become the most meme-d moment of 2025. My WhatsApp groups are full of them. Please, no one else send me the ‘Coldplay haven’t released any singles in years, but last night they made four’ one.

Look, it’s not like I haven’t chuckled. Honestly? It’s the sort of silly season story (not that it really exists any more given the current news agenda) that journalists dream about. All the ingredients are there: sex, scandal, betrayal, celebrity, being caught out in the most unbelievable way. I mean, if they hadn’t reacted the way they did, they’d probably never have been caught out.

But I’ve also flinched a bit. A lot of the headlines have focused on Byron’s position as a CEO - he’s now resigned by the way - but I feel like the narrative around him has leant towards everything he’s ‘lost’: his job, his marriage, the fact he allegedly didn’t have a pre-nup and so is going to be ‘taken to the cleaners’ in the divorce. I’ve seen the word ‘stupid’ used over and over, as if his significant error was to take his ‘mistress’ to a public event.

The woman? As things stand, she seems not to have lost her job, but it can only be a matter of time given that she’s the HR chief and supposed keeper of company standards. It’s one of those ‘you couldn’t make it up’ details and I can understand why the internet is having fun with that one. But, by far and away, most of the criticism of her that I’ve seen - or that my algorithm has fed me, at least - has also struck a tone of moral judgement that men in these situations tend not to get.

Automatically, she’s the ‘other woman’ - nevermind that she’s also married, so Byron is technically the ‘other man’, too. I’ve read jibes about her having been married previously and that she must therefore now be ‘cheating on the man she cheated on her first husband with’ - the old once a cheater, always a cheater line (I don’t know if this is true, or not). On Instagram, there have been reels made by women calling on women like Cabot to ‘do better’ and not sleep with married men. Oddly, I haven’t seen one telling men not to sleep with married women yet.

Last time I checked, the Jumbocam had caught two people canoodling. But the treatment of each one has highlighted how we still see women and men differently when infidelity is at play.

Urgh. You just feel it in your bones that he won’t struggle to get another highly paid job, while she’ll be tarnished. A female COO friend (ie. someone who knows more about how this stuff plays out in the corporate world than I do), messaged to say “Will she ever work again? There’s a bitter irony to someone in her role setting that kind of example. And yet it probably won’t impact the CEO’s hireability…”

Arguably worse, a younger woman who was standing beside Byron and Cabot at Coldplay, was dragged into the whole thing after being mis-identified by online sleuths as their junior colleague Alyssa Stoddard. The internet mob turned on Stoddard - who it turns out wasn’t even at the concert - accusing this totally innocent woman of having known about the affair and not said anything (because it’s so easy to speak up about your boss and CEO, right?) She was also accused of getting a promotion because of it. Talk about misogynistic and degrading: young woman is promoted, so it can SURELY only be because she’d found out that her boss was bonking the chief exec.

The double standard around women is a pattern we see time and again with these sorts of stories. Think of celebrity affairs, or alleged ones, where the woman involved has faced significantly more moral judgement than the man. Kristen Stewart for instance - does anyone even remember the name of the married director involved? Lily James was treated far more brutally than Dominic West, after they were photographed in Rome together in 2020 and basically went to ground for months. The man is metaphorically patted on the back, quickly welcomed back into the fold and believed if he denies involvement.

Nor is it just famous people, actually: while researching this Substack, I stumbled across a Reddit thread for ‘other women’ talking about their current relationship with a ‘MM’ (married man) and their awareness that, should the affair be exposed, the man involved was prepared to accuse them of ‘stalking’ him and deny everything. Wow.

Even the woman who posted the Coldplay video on TikTok in the first place, Grace Springer, 28, has felt the need to defend herself. She just thought it was a funny moment, she has said, and had no idea who the couple were.

I guess that’s the other thing that makes me feel squeamish: not so many years ago, something like this would never have made it out of the stadium. Now? Within hours, their names, jobs, families and addresses had been unearthed online. People have been apparently sending messages to their spouses. Byron’s wife, Megan, has deleted her social media.

Is it OK that as well as finding out your husband/wife has been cheating in the most public way imagineable, you’re then hounded off the internet? All those people preaching that Byron and Cabot deserve everything that’s coming their way, might want to spare a thought for their families, who are undoubtedly being hurt twice - by their betrayal and our merciless reaction.

I asked the brilliant author and psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber what she thought.

“The schadenfreude and obsession with this scandal is a form of dark comfort, a reminder that privilege can’t actually purchase exemption from the fundamental messiness of desire and betrayal​​​​​​​​​​​​​​,” she messaged me from her holiday, where she said this was basically the only topic of conversation.

These sorts of situations, she added, “force us to confront the uncomfortable truth that no amount of money, consciousness, or careful curation can exempt anyone. Rather than sitting with that discomfort, we immediately begin the work of moral archaeology, digging for someone to blame so we can restore our faith in a just universe where good people get good outcomes.”

Told you she was good. It’s true, though, isn’t it? We are obsessed with this because these aren’t celebrities but private, normal - if well paid and very senior - people. They could be anyone we know. And we love to see the downfall of well paid and very senior people when they screw up. For many, Byron and Cabot represent the sort of entitled managers we’ve all had - who think they don’t have to play by the rules - and whom we’d like to have seen get their comeuppance. Karma, at last.

Except that we don’t know these people and while it’s one hell of a comedy for us, it’s a tragedy for the families involved. How would you come off, if your worst behaviour was accidentally caught on camera and broadcast around the world? Genuine question. Let me know what you think in the comments. And, whatever you do, ditch the ‘him behind her’ swaying - it’s over.

Tell Me About…

Ooh I used to do this back when I first started here on Substack almost exactly two years ago and I miss it. A picture of the week, readable links, a desirable thing. So let’s go.

Picture of the week

Ok, we’ve covered the Coldplay images, so here's a photo of my very wet trousers on Saturday morning after going for a swim at the rainy local lido (they are wet, even though they’re giving Ross’s leather trousers in this pic). Despite appearances, I didn’t actually swim in said trousers but got caught in an almighty downpour on the way home - my husband and I argue over definitions of rain: my ‘downpour’ is his ‘drizzle’ as a Northerner, but even he had to concede that this was heavy stuff. Anyway, it’s the sort of Insta post that always makes me feel a bit smug - it was a humblebrag, let’s be honest. A swim before 8am and in the rain? Check me out. But then a journalist friend messaged to say that it reminded her of many horrible swims at school, in wet weather - and I was transported right back there. Both my schools had outdoor, concrete pools that were never temperate, even in the height of summer. The water never failed to produce instant goosepimples and it was almost impossible to warm up after a swimming lesson, the rest of the day being spent shivering in your school uniform. When this early cold water trauma came back to me, I actually did feel quite proud of having dragged myself to the lido and braved the cold rain. Was anyone else subjected to such things?

Want, want, want

My husband loathes coffee (philistine) and while I don’t think this coffee bean bracelet is a subconscious eyebrow raise, I can’t rule it out. Anyway, it’s very simple but also I imagine that bean could be very satisfying to play with on your wrist. A bit like rubbing your erasers in your school pencil case until they felt very smooth. It’s by L’Atelier 73, who I’ve only just discovered thanks to a recommendation in the Sunday Times Style magazine and it’s £50.

Read

• ‘Midnight pasta’ sounds like the sort of thing Nora Ephron might have conjured up. This recipe by

  Big Salad
  , for her loved-up friends sounds delicious and comes with a side order of musings on falling in love. Enjoyable. Read here.

• I thought Times writer Helen Rumbelow’s analysis of the Mark Gordon and Constance Marten case (the couple who went on the run with their newborn baby, who subsequently died) and how it’s tied to conspiracy culture was one of the best I’d read. Paywall, but I think should be available to read here.

• Only just managed to read this, but Annie Scott’s account of being jealous of her old friend hit SO many sore spots. We’ve all felt like this, I reckon, at some time or other and it’s brave of her to write about it.

• This is such an interesting take on female writers being asked to bare their souls. I actually really enjoy writing about my life, but on my terms - and I know women who have felt pressured into giving away more than they feel comfortable with. Well articulated by author Caroline O’Donoghue here.

That’s it. See you next week.

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