Astronomer Hired Gwyneth Paltrow to Serve as Their "Very Temporary" Spokesperson

Although they're still selling out arenas, Coldplay is not a band that's often making headlines. However, when the CEO of Astronomer, Andy Byron, was caught on the jumbotron at a Coldplay concert with a woman who was not his wife (and was in fact another employee at the company), Coldplay made headlines, and Byron had to step down.

Although we thought that viral moment was in the past, Astronomer wanted to put one final button on the whole episode. They've hired Gwyneth Paltrow as their temporary spokesperson for a new ad, and it's actually pretty funny. Here's what we know:

Astronomer likely tapped the Goop CEO and Academy Award-winning actress to be in an ad for them because she is also Coldplay frontman Chris Martin's ex-wife. That adds an extra punch to the ad, as we're reminded not just of Andy's infidelity, but also of the Coldplay singer's relationship.

“I’ve been hired on a very temporary basis to speak on behalf of the 300-plus employees at Astronomer,” Gwyneth says in the new ad.

She adds that the company's employees have gotten "a lot of questions over the last few days."

She then proceeds to address those questions, but focuses on the tech dealings of Astronomer instead of on the sordid affair that's been consuming so many headlines. Although the incident cost them their CEO and the head of their HR department, Astronomer has capitalized on the moment to help more people learn about the company.

The caption under the video reads simply "Thank you for your interest in Astronomer.”

It seems, then, that Astronomer knew that posting a video with Chris Martin's ex would generate some provocative clips, even if the substance of the video is mostly just promoting their company. They are capitalizing on a viral moment by grabbing a celebrity who is closely associated with it.

During a recent show, Coldplay was showing various couples on the jumbotron, as they often do. When they panned to Andy Byron and Astronomer's head of HR, Kristin Cabot, engaged in some snuggling, the two acted like they had been caught red-handed, and Chris even said, “Whoa, look at these two. Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”

Of course, internet sleuths immediately pored over the video to figure out exactly who the two of them were, and Chris had no idea how right he was. Both Andy and Kristin resigned from their positions with Astronomer, and the internet became briefly obsessed with the story of these two, who were both cheating on their partners by attending the concert together.

Astronomer's ad seems like the final button on a story that dominated a week in July, but will ultimately become the kind of viral story that is largely forgotten. After all, it's really a personal saga about the lives of people whom the public didn't know anything about before Coldplay happened to catch them being intimate on camera.