Gwyneth Paltrow has been hired as Astronomer’s ‘temporary spokesperson’ to answer the many questions received following her ex-husband Chris Martin’s involvement in the company’s kiss cam scandal.
The Hollywood star, 52, and the software company alike were praised for the ‘brilliant’ move and having a ‘savage’ sense of humour in the wake of the world’s unexpected scrutiny over two former employees.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Astronomer’s CEO Andy Byron was caught in an embrace on a jumbotron at a Coldplay concert in Boston earlier this month with his HR chief Kristin Cabot before they both abruptly tried to hide.
This led frontman Chris to joke: ‘Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy!’
Both have since quit their roles at the company after the clip went viral and sparked countless memes and jokes at their expense.
But Astronomer has had the last joke in hiring actress and Goop founder Gwyneth for a parody video in an expert crisis management move.
The Shakespeare in Love star – who famously ‘consciously uncoupled’ from rock star Chris, 48, in 2014 – revealed in the surprise video on Friday night that she had been ‘hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer’.
‘Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones,’ she explained, brightly, before the video cut to on-screen text typing out the question, ‘OMG! What the actual f—’.
The actress then leapt in to, um, definitely not answer that question, instead enthusing: ‘Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apace Airflow.’
She added: ‘We’ve been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation.’
‘As for the other questions we’ve received,’ the Oscar-winner continued, before on-screen text again popped up to wite out, ‘How is your social media team holding—’.
The Sliding Doors actress again responded on an obviously unrelated note to advertise that yes, there was indeed still space at an upcoming conference Astronomer is holding in September.
She then signed off the video on Astronomer’s social pages by thanking people for their interest in Astronomer and adding: ‘We will now be returning to what we do best.’
‘You got Chris Martin’s ex-wife???!!! Savage,’ commented Molly O’Shea on X, while Dan Go praised the video as ‘marketing jiu jitsu’ and another fan laughingly called Gwyneth’s hire ‘diabolical’.
‘Whenever [sic.] was behind this idea should be the first to enter heavens pearly gates,’ commented @empressatlantis as @tednotlasso added: ‘CMO should be new CEO.’
‘I want to hate on it but I cannot. Masterclass,’ added Josh Pate.
‘The Entertainment from now until the end of time,’ tweeted @nearcyan while Sam Kampner suggested: ‘Just another proof [sic.] that there’s no such thing as “bad publicity”.’
The kiss cam moment also resulted in a surge of interest in Coldplay’s chart-topping music too, with streaming up 25% on the band’s tunes.
According to data from Luminate sourced by Billboard, in the five days before the Boston concert on July 16, Coldplay had 28,700,000 streams. This soared up to 35,700,000 in the five days after the scandal.
The clip was filmed by Grace Springer, 28, from New Jersey, who stood by her decision to share it online in the wake of the media frenzy, saying she had ‘no idea’ who the couple was and just thought she had ‘caught an interesting reaction to the kiss cam and decided to post it.
She told The U.S. Sun: ‘A part of me feels bad for turning these people’s live’s upside down, but, play stupid games… win stupid prizes.
‘I hope their partners can heal from this and get a second chance at the happiness they deserve with their future still in front of them.’
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