Patriot Brief

  • What Happened: Kristin Cabot, who went viral for kissing her married boss at a Coldplay concert, is now a keynote speaker at an $875 per person crisis communications conference.
  • Why It Matters: Cabot is turning her adultery scandal into a lucrative speaking career, appearing at an event called "Taking Back The Narrative."
  • Bottom Line: High-profile adultery apparently pays well, at least if you can spin it into a crisis management story.

Apparently destroying two marriages on national television can be quite profitable these days.

Kristin Cabot, the woman who went viral for making out with her married boss on the Coldplay kiss cam last July, is now cashing in on her fifteen minutes of fame. She will be a keynote speaker at PR Week's Crisis Comms Conference in Washington, D.C., in April, and tickets cost a whopping $875 per person.

The event is titled "Kristin Cabot: Taking Back The Narrative," according to the conference website. Because nothing says crisis communications expert quite like getting caught cheating with your boss in front of thousands of concert goers and millions more online.

Cabot and her then-boss, Astronomer CEO Andy Byron, became internet infamous after cameras caught them kissing at the Coldplay concert. Both were married to other people at the time. The fallout was swift. Byron stepped down from his position at Astronomer, and both marriages reportedly fell apart.

But instead of quietly dealing with the consequences of her actions, Cabot decided to turn the scandal into a business opportunity. Now she is being paid nearly $900 a head to tell people how she managed the crisis she created.

This is the world we live in now. You can blow up your life and your family on camera, call yourself a victim, and charge people hundreds of dollars to hear you explain how you are taking back the narrative. As if the narrative was ever taken from her in the first place.

The conference promises attendees will learn from Cabot's experience managing public scandal. What lesson exactly? That bad behavior pays as long as you can spin it the right way?

High-profile adultery can apparently be a temporary big payday. At least until the speaking circuit moves on to the next scandal.