Days after the Coldplay kiss cam incident involving former Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, the AI startup has teamed up with vocalist Chris Martin’s ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow in a move that the internet describes as a “PR masterclass”.
The witty video is being praised by netizens for being the “best crisis management” done in years. Several other social media users were in awe of the company’s clever marketing efforts, calling it a “PR masterclass”.
In a tongue-in-cheek promo video shared by the tech startup on Saturday, the actress tells viewers that she has been hired as a temporary spokesperson to represent more than 300 employees at Astronomer in order to answer very basic questions.
“Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. I've been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer,” says the Hollywood actress in the clip.
The Iron Man actress said that the company has “gotten a lot of questions in the last few days”, and that they wanted her to answer “the most common ones”.
However, instead of addressing the wide-scale controversy, Paltrow went on to ignore the questions raised and started describing the work that the company is involved in.
The video opens with someone typing, “OMG! What the actual F”, before cutting to Paltrow, who sidesteps the controversial incident and says that the tech firm is the “best place to run Apache Airflow”. Speaking for the New York-based company, the actress also said that a lot of people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.
During the second round of questions, which asks about how the company’s social media team is handling its reputation. “Yes, there is still room available at our Beyond Analytics event in September. We will now be returning to what we do best — delivering game-changing results for our customers,” she said in the video.
“Thank you for your interest in Astronomer,” Patrow says, concluding the video.
“This might be one of the greatest cases of crisis management you’ll see in a while. This will definitely be used as a case study in schools for years to come. The fact that they used Chris Martin’s ex-wife for this makes it even more incredible,” wrote an X user.
“Guys this is a PR masterclass. You take the most viral moment of July 2025 and, instead of disaster control, make light of the situation and create the ultimate brand awareness,” another netizen shared.
The clever video prompted a social media user to believe that the whole Coldplaygate incident was a PR stunt. “Almost feels like it was all a publicity stunt,” he tweeted.
“Hiring the ex wife of the lead Coldplay singer to deliver this message is absolutely savage,” said another X user.
The video comes more than a week after Astronomer CEO Andy Bryon’s alleged affair with his firm’s HR head Kristin Cabot was purportedly exposed by a kiss cam at a recent Coldplay concert in Massachusetts.
It all started with a viral video from Coldplay’s Wednesday concert. In the short clip, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin draws attention to a couple embracing each other during the show. The man and the woman were later identified as Byron and Cabot. As the kiss cam zoomed in on the two, Byron ducked out of view, while Cabot buried her face in her hands.
Both Byron and Cabot are married to other people. Byron’s wife, Megan Kerrigan, serves as an associate director of Lower School and Hope Graham Program Admissions at the Bancroft School. Kerrigan and Byron are parents to two children. Cabot, on the other hand, is married to Andrew Cabot, owner of the Privateer Rum.
The incident has become meme fodder, with posts — right from jokes on Boomers to jibes at corporate culture — flooding social media overnight.