Did CEO Andy Byron blame Coldplay for Viral Big Screen Incident – Fact Check
Internet rumours claim that Astronomer CEO Andy Byron released a statement blaming the band Coldplay for inadvertently exposing an affair he was having with an employee.
FALSEThe Internet has been buzzing recently with the apparent moment Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was caught having an affair with a senior employee at a Coldplay concert when the pair ended up on the band’s “Kisscam” segment.
The pair, who were in a seemingly intimate embrace at the time, abruptly ducked for cover after seeing themselves on the big screen, prompting Coldplay frontman Chris Martin to jokingly suggest the pair may have been having an affair. The incident has gone viral across social media sparking many memes along the way.
The latest twist, if social media and tabloid media is to be believed, is that Byron subsequently released a statement regarding the incident where he seems to blame the band for intruding on a “private moment”. The statement is below.
I want to acknowledge the moment that’s been circulating online, and the disappointment it’s caused.What was supposed to be a night of music and joy turned into a deeply personal mistake play-out out on a very public stage. I want to sincerely apologize to my wife, my family, and my team at Astronomer. You deserve better from me as a partner, as a father, and as a leader.This is not who I want to be or how I want to represent the company I helped build. I’m taking time to reflect, take accountability, and figure out the next steps, personally and professionally. I ask for privacy as I navigate that process.I also want to express how troubling it is that what should have been a private moment became public without my consent. I respect artists and entertainers, but I hope we can all think more deeply about the impact of turning someone else’s life into a spectacle.As a friend once sang: ‘Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you.
However the statement is false.
While the release flew across social media with hundreds of accounts reposting it while expressing disbelief that Byron would attempt to blame the band that allegedly “outed” the affair* it was not immediately clear where the statement originated, since it was not posted from neither an official Astronomer account nor any of Andy Byron’s official channels.
(*to clarify, they have not been confirmed to actually have been having an affair at the time of writing, and neither have released anything publicly)
However, one of the earliest iterations of the statement could be traced back to a low-follower X account belonging to username Peter Enis CBS News (below – no points awarded to the wordplay in that name). However, there is, unsurprisingly, no Peter Enis at CBS News, and the account was later suspended by X.
Of course this didn’t stop many high-follower social media accounts on reporting the statement as fact, and this consequently led to many fact-allergic tabloid rags on reporting the statement as fact also – most of which have been subsequently retracted or edited.
Finally, Byron’s team later reached out to TMZ, one of the first publications to frivolously report the statement was real, and have confirmed that it is, indeed, fake.
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