Software development firm Astronomer has enlisted Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow to serve as its temporary spokesperson in a video making light of the Coldplay kiss cam incident that turned the company into a household name.
“Thank you for your interest in Astronomer,” the Talented Mr. Ripley star begins in a video posted to Astronomer’s social media accounts on Friday. “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.”
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“Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days, and they wanted me to answer the most common ones,” Paltrow continues — referring to the company that faced a public relations crisis after two of its executives were caught cuddling at a Coldplay concert in an alleged affair.
The video then cuts to a message being typed on the screen, which reads, “OMG! What the actual f–” before it is cut off, going back to Paltrow.
“Yes, Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow, unifying the experience of running data, ML, and AI pipelines at scale,” the Shakespeare in Love star says, humorously dismissing the interrupted query.
“We’ve been thrilled so many people have a newfound interest in data workflow automation,” Paltrow adds.
“As for the other questions we’ve received,” the Iron Man 3 star continues, before the video again cuts to a question typed on the screen, which reads, “How is your social media team holding–”
Before the inquiry can be completed, the promotional video cuts back to Paltrow, who exclaims, “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,” Paltrow asserts on behalf of the software development firm, before concluding, “Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.”
The promotional video featuring Paltrow — who is also the ex-wife of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin — comes after Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and the company’s HR Chief Kristin Cabot ducked out of sight and turned away from the camera, respectively, after they were caught cuddling on a kiss cam during the band’s July 16 concert in Foxborough, Massachusetts.
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The incident sparked what — at first — appeared to be an all-out public relations disaster for Astronomer, as the footage went mega viral on social media, where viewers have been mocking Byron and Cabot ever since, amid questions of an alleged affair.
Astronomer responded by announcing that its Board of Directors had launched a formal investigation into its executives, stressing, “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability.”
The following day, the company revealed that Byron would be stepping down from his role as CEO, declaring, “That standard was not met.”
“Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,” Astronomer lamented.
While the firm was perhaps known within its industry, the reality is that, overnight, Astronomer became known globally as a result of the Coldplay kiss cam scandal, providing evidence to the age-old theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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