They’re calling it the best crisis marketing anyone’s ever seen. Astronomer has hired none other than Gwyneth Paltrow to handle the fallout from the Coldplay kiss cam cheating scandal, in which its CEO, Andy Byron, was exposed canoodling with the head of HR, Kristin Cabot.
Since the video of the incident went viral, both Byron and Cabot have lost their jobs. Astronomer, a major tech company worth over a billion pounds with certified “unicorn” status, has stayed largely silent.
Until now. The company officially decided to engage in crisis PR, and boy, did they engage well.
Astronomer managed to recruit Oscar-winning actress and Chris Martin’s ex-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, to field questions about the company in light of the scandal.
Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. pic.twitter.com/WtxEegbAMY
— Astronomer (@astronomerio) July 25, 2025
The video opens with Paltrow introducing herself, accompanied by the title “Temporary Spokesperson.”
“Hi, I’m Gwyneth Paltrow. I’ve been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer,” says Paltrow, who split with Coldplay singer Chris Martin in 2014.
"Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones.”
The first question is simply “OMG. What the actual f—”, which Paltrow hilariously dodges by talking about the company’s Apache Airflow service.
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She continues to bat away questions about the scandal while promoting the company, a supremely media-trained professional in full flow.
“We will now be returning to what we do best, delivering game changing results for our customers,” Paltrow concludes. “Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.”
“This belongs in the crisis management hall of fame,” one X user said in a retweet of the video. “This is marketing jiu jitsu,” another replied to the video.
Chris Martin’s ex-wife delivering this 💀
— Bry DiSanto⚡️ (@brydisanto) July 25, 2025
“Masterclass in turning a crazy situation into the right form of attention while providing everyone a laugh. Well done,” a fellow X user added.
Paltrow is also the CEO of Goop, a wellness company which has been hit with its fair share of difficult press. One of the most memorable moments of backlash came after Goop started selling jade eggs, which a wellness guru recommended be placed inside the buyer’s vagina.
