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ASTRONOMER, THE COMPANY few in Ireland had heard of before last week, has rolled out A-list celebrity Gwyneth Paltrow to help with its ongoing PR crisis.
The company was cast into the limelight this month when a kiss-cam video of its CEO and HR manager at a Coldplay concert went viral.
The video showed the CEO with his arms around the HR manager. They realise their interaction is being projected onto the stadium’s big screens and quickly try to exit the frame, the woman covering her face and the man diving to the floor.
The band’s frontman Chris Martin can be heard saying: “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”
The video has since been viewed over 70 million times, and both employees have resigned from the company.
Andy Byron, the CEO, resigned last week after the company launched a formal investigation, while the HR executive’s resignation was confirmed by the company yesterday.
In a video posted to social media today, the company has capitalised on the unwanted attention, enlisting actress Gwyneth Paltrow — Chris Martin’s ex-wife — to assist with its crisis communications.
Thank you for your interest in Astronomer. pic.twitter.com/WtxEegbAMY
— Astronomer (@astronomerio) July 25, 2025
In the video, Paltrow jokes that she has been hired on a “very temporary basis” to speak on behalf of the 300+ employees at Astronomer.
“Astronomer has gotten a lot of questions over the last few days,” Paltrow says in the clip as a text flashes up on the screen reading:
“OMG! What the actual f”
“Yes. Astronomer is the best place to run Apache Airflow,” Paltrow says before launching briefly into the AI and data work the company does.
“We’ve been thrilled so many people have a new interest in data workflow automation,” Paltrow says.
The short clip promotes an event being held by the company later this year and concludes with Paltrow smiling: “Thank you for your interest in Astronomer”.
Astronomer was a previously obscure tech company based in New York. It provides big companies with a platform that helps them organise their data.
Online streams of Coldplay’s songs jumped 20% in the days after the video went viral, according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company.
Includes reporting from Press Association
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