We know the type. The sort of man you shouldn’t touch with a barge pole but – flattered, gullible, gauche – we can’t resist.
He has a career involving frequent travel, five-star hotel stays and corporate events where teams are built and marriages shattered. You can smell him a mile off: Dior Sauvage probably. A Breitling watch on a hirsute, tanned arm. Dark, pressed denim. Deck shoes, because he believes he deserves a yacht. Salt-and-pepper hair and a patrician air. He doubtless snaps at waiters – that is, unless they’re pretty and young.
He reads GQ, watches F1 with the curtains closed and guards gym time like a ninja. He has a perfect life and a gorgeous wife but feels he deserves a little excitement. He’s far too good to be rationed.
I’m certain women the world over watched the footage captured by the kiss cam at a Coldplay concert in Boston last week and nodded in recognition. We don’t know that Andy Byron, CEO of a data company called Astronomy (this type tends to have a career as unknowable as Chandler’s in Friends, expressly so they can’t be quizzed) is that type – but not a single one of us would be surprised if we were told he was.
Our first thought upon seeing him bear-hugging a blonde who clearly wasn’t his wife was: ‘Yeah. We didn’t need Chris Martin to unconsciously uncouple him. He gives the appearance of being a smarmy, mansplaining, brilliantined, oleaginous, corporate pig.’
Is it the brilliantined hair? The all-American ‘Alpha male and I know it’ vibe? The fact that when he saw himself projected on the big screen at the concert, his first reported reaction – as disclosed by lip readers – was ‘f***ing hell, it’s me’, not ‘it’s us’? That his instincts were all for himself, his reputation, his flawless image?
Footage captured on a kiss cam at Coldplay’s concert unintentionally exposed what appered to be an affair between Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and colleague Kristin cabot
‘The problem is, this type of man can be seductive, especially if you’re young or stupid or ambitious, in awe of his higher status in the office,’ writes Liz Jones. Pictured: Andy Byron
The problem is, this type of man can be seductive, especially if you’re young or stupid or ambitious, in awe of his higher status in the office.
I should know, because I fell for this type a year ago. He too was silver haired – hovering near 60, while Andy Byron is 50 – well-dressed and wore aftershave that made me not want to launder the sheets. Indeed, he was so well moisturised he’d often slither away in bed. He had a glamorous, powerful job and swore he was ‘tired of bimbos with nothing to say’.
‘I want a life partner,’ he told me. But he didn’t – he wanted to play the field as though he was 40 years younger. My cheating boyfriend swore there were no other women while merrily seeing several others.
Byron’s partner in crime, Kristin Cabot, is head of his company’s HR department.
It might not seem the case right now to Byron’s betrayed wife, Megan, having to explain to their two sons that dear old dad has gone viral, but ultimately whoever shot and posted the Coldplay footage did her a massive favour.
The status of their marriage isn’t certain, but if Megan needed definitive proof of his handsy habits, here it is. There should be no more giving him the benefit of the doubt, no more staring at the phone when he’s off ‘on business’, hoping for a text.
There is nothing like hard evidence, seeing not just how happy he looked with another woman, but his arms wrapped around her, flesh on creepy (crepey!) flesh, to hammer home that your relationship is over.
When I was married, I found out my husband was cheating by going through the camera he took while travelling in India. On it, clear as day, undeleted (men are often too arrogant to believe they’ll slip up), were numerous photos of a blonde woman asleep in bed. Or laughing on a balcony in a bikini. Without the photos he’d have continued to insist I was paranoid.
‘You might believe you’re invincible, but not in this age of deliciously indiscriminate technology. You might travel miles to a concert in the belief you won’t be spotted, but these days, walls have eyes as well as ears.’ Pictured: The concert with the pair on the kiss cam
The vindication I felt was huge. And how wonderful it is when unfaithful spouses are hoist by their own petard, caught in the very act of betrayal by the kind of tech they think will never let them down because they are the masters of it.
And so, I want to say to Byron’s wife: once you’re over the shock – I’d advise you stop rewinding the footage, zooming in for details, clues – you can take comfort in seeing the woman is clearly not better looking or more interesting than you. They never are. The mistress is a simpering ego booster who doesn’t nag about childcare or the bins… yet.
I’m hoping Megan is soon honking over her love rival’s clearly airbrushed photo on the company website, thinking, ‘HR, seriously? The sort of career for women whose only talent is to perch on a boss’s desk, chest thrust forward, stilettos swinging.’
Megan, what you really need right now, apart from a good lawyer, is anger. When I wrote about finding out about my boyfriend’s infidelities, many (mostly male) readers wrote in to say I had been ‘humiliated’ and found ‘wanting’. Megan, the reverse is true.
Of course, anyone can fall out of love. But what you must not do is make your wife live a lie. As Emma Thompson’s character said tearfully in Love Actually, upon discovering her husband (played by Alan Rickman) had bought a Christmas gift of jewellery for his foxy PA, who’d made her feelings clear: ‘You’ve made the life I lead foolish too.’
And to all those cheating men out there (the women who dally with married men are as bad – Kristin Cabot, on her second marriage, also has children), let the Coldplay couple act as a warning. We all know rock concert tickets are expensive, but not to the tune of the millions he’ll be parting with if he divorces.
You might believe you’re invincible, Mr Alpha CEO, but not in this age of deliciously indiscriminate technology. You might travel miles to a concert in the belief you won’t be spotted, but these days, walls have eyes as well as ears. Good job, too.
