I Watched an Acquaintance Get Slut-Shamed by the Entire Country

Why are the women always to blame?

Women’s sexuality is constantly under scrutiny and held to a different standard than men’s. Before you say, duh, we know that, think about the recent case of Kristin Cabot—the woman who was caught canoodling with her boss on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in July 2025.

Like everyone else, I first saw the kiss cam video when it came out last summer. It was everywhere, and despite being in an intentional news blackout at the time, even I couldn’t avoid it. 

I was in a hotel lobby in Miami when I saw the first headline, I didn’t think much of it—just another salacious story about a tech bro behaving badly. But then the texts started rolling in, and I realized this wasn’t just another tabloid headline. Not to me, anyway.

Full disclosure: I know Kristin.

Or, at least, I knew her a little bit a very long time ago. We went to college together. We weren’t close friends, but we had many friends in common—some of whom I’m still quite close to. Hence, the texts.

I never hung out alone with Kristin—I knew her as Kristi—at least not that I can recall. We were acquaintances in the same social circle, which meant that we were in the same room a lot, but never quite connected.

I mention this not to distance myself from her, but to make it clear from the start that I’m not here to defend an old friend. I’m here to defend a woman who may or may not have behaved badly and nevertheless has been treated wildly unfairly. 

When the story first broke, it struck me as overblown. Even if what was being reported was true—that they were both in committed marriages and executives at the same company—it hardly seemed like front-page news. I assumed it was only being amplified because of the Chris Martin angle. To me, the punishment—and the relentless tabloid coverage—didn’t seem to fit the crime.

After a couple of weeks, I had all but forgot about it. But when I stumbled on The Oprah Podcast in my feed a few weeks ago, I was sucked right back in.

As I listened to Kristin tell her side of the story to Oprah, it became clear to me that this scandal was interesting but for an entirely different reason than I initially thought.

According to Oprah, the kiss cam video has been viewed 300 billion times online. 

Billion. I don’t even know how to fact-check that stat.

Considering there are a little more than 8.2 billion people on the entire planet, that’s 36+ viewings per human on the planet. 

Take a moment to think about how insane that is.

I won’t lie—I was one of them. I didn’t intentionally watch it 36+ times, but it was impossible to avoid. It was also, admittedly, compelling. How often do you see someone you know, even peripherally, on the front page of TMZ?

On Oprah, Kristin explained that, at the time of the event, she and her husband were newly separated and that her boss, Andy Byron, told her he was separated as well. Her ex has confirmed this in the press. Byron’s wife has not and filed for divorce shortly after the video surfaced (though reports say they have since reconciled).

What struck me most, listening to friends from college talk about this, wasn’t the chatter itself. It’s rare and shocking to see someone you know—even loosely—become a national punchline. What struck me was the lack of empathy. Of all the people we know in common, I can recall maybe two who expressed any concern for her.

By the time you get into your 50s, you know a lot of people who have cheated or made questionable decisions in their romantic lives. I know a lot of secrets and have shared some of my own. None of us are 100 percent clear.

And yet, it’s been surprisingly easy for people to forget their own missteps. The coworker they kissed. The affair they justified because of a lack of sex. The lines they have crossed over time.

What I’ve tried to point out to a few friends—largely unsuccessfully—is that it’s mostly luck that those moments didn’t end up on a Jumbotron. It’s a miracle that our dumbest nights didn’t become our legacy, videoed, memed, and/or replayed without our knowledge or consent. (Think of revenge porn.) 

The billions of times that the physical interaction between Kristin and Andy Byron has been replayed is the only difference between us and them.

We treat public shaming like it’s just part of the culture now. But I was worried about Kristi because there are real, documented cases in the United States where that kind of mass humiliation, particularly when it targets women, has had devastating, even fatal consequences.

Think about Audrie Pott, a 15-year-old in California who died by suicide in 2012 after photos of her being sexually assaulted while unconscious were circulated among her peers.

For her, the harm wasn’t just the assault—though that must have been horrific. It was the narrative that followed. The circulation, the commentary about her and her body and mostly the absence of empathy she experienced. 

In these cases, for adults and children, reputation damage becomes the weapon. Under the right conditions, that kind of cruelty can be lethal.

Audrie was a victim in every sense. Nothing that happened to her was her fault.

I’ve considered that maybe Kristin’s situation is different because she made a choice. Perhaps that’s why people feel so comfortable withholding any grace—because they believe that she participated in her own downfall.

Whatever the status of their marriages were that night, I’m comfortable (as Kristin is publicly) calling it a lapse in judgment. A moment of bad decision-making. 

Workplace romances can cause a lot of problems, especially one between the Chief People Officer and the CEO. Kristin has her own theories about the topic, including that many people have had unpleasant interactions with human resources and therefore take some pleasure in seeing the HR lady get herself into a pickle. 

But what really gets my goat here is this: Where is Andy Byron in this story? And why aren’t more people talking about what a bad idea it was for the CEO to snuggle his employee. The conversation is about Kristin—the woman who got involved with her boss—not about the male boss who crossed a line with a direct report.

As my very religious grandmother used to say, it takes two to tango. If this is a sin, they both committed it. 

Yet no one seems particularly interested in Andy Byron. On the heels of #MeToo, that’s hard for me to ignore. Have rich white men in positions of power learned nothing? And why aren’t we holding them accountable?

Oprah suggested that some of the vitriol may be tied to how Kristin looks—she’s white, blonde, and gives off context clues that project wealth. The inference is that she is conventionally attractive and therefore a target.

Maybe. It’s hard to say because her appearance has been dissected as much as her behavior.

In my opinion, Andy Byron—I am intentionally repeating both his first and last names here—is also a conventionally attractive guy. Watch any of his pre-scandal interviews and I see the appeal. He is what I’d call a silver fox. Handsome, charming, and rich, if not smart.

For this misstep, while his wife did file for divorce (which may or may not still be in progress) and he had to resign from his job, there was no blatant character assassination. Although some of my friends saw a bit of negative press, I never did. To my knowledge, his appearance has never been mentioned. To my knowledge, he has never been called a slut or a home wrecker.

Boys will be boys, right?!?

Kristin hasn’t been so lucky; she’s received death threats. She was doxxed (her phone number and address were given out publicly). Paparazzi have camped outside her home. Her children, also caught in the fallout, have asked her not to attend school events for the time being.

He may be suffering in the same ways, just a bit less publicly. I can’t know for sure. 

What I do know is that this story unsettles me in a way I can’t quite shake. It reminds me of the feeling I had after Trump’s first election—that sudden awareness that people you’ve been moving among and trusting might see the world very differently than you thought. And that they may be a threat.

Why do I feel threatened by this story? Because I know I’m not a perfect person. And because in my conversations, women have had the meanest things to say about Kristin.

She told Oprah that hands down the ugliest comments—both online and in real life (more than once in front of her children)—have been from other women. Fingers pointed. Charging at her to tell her what a piece of shit she is. 

That shakes me. 

I rely on my female friendships to boost me up and make me feel whole, so when I hear other women talking about one another this way, it gives me goosebumps. When women are trashing each other this way, it makes the world feel unsafe to me.  

Because I know that under slightly different circumstances—a few different choices, a little less luck—this could have been me. Or you.

Not exactly. Not in this exact way. But close enough.

And that’s the part I keep coming back to. Not what Kristin did. Not whether she should reflect on her actions. That is no one’s problem but hers.

But I am stuck on why people—other women, in particular—seem to take such glee in the downfall of a woman while barely mentioning the “sins” of the man. 

It gives me a chill because it illustrates just how thin the ice we skate on actually is, and how few warm hands will reach down to help you out of the cold water once you fall in. 

For a deep dive into this topic with the author, tune into the latest episode of Another Bloody Podcast, where you can eavesdrop on candid, wide-ranging conversations about the things your doctor probably should have mentioned—but somehow didn’t.

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