Central Park lawyers’ viral kiss sparks privacy debate

At this point, anyone who leaves the house risks ending up in the background of someone else's video. Phones have made filming strangers routine, while Meta glasses have made some cameras nearly impossible to spot. Once that footage reaches TikTok, a brief encounter can land in front of millions of viewers — and the people in the video might never know.

But every so often, the camera appears to catch something more salacious: a possible affair. It’s less common than the usual viral fodder...though it happens more often than it probably should.

On July 23, TikTok creator Jay Guapõ, who boasts 3.5 million followers, posted a video showing a man and woman kissing near Central Park West and West 63rd Street. Guapõ approaches them while continuing to record.

"Get a room. There's kids around," he tells them.

The video received more than 2 million views within its first several days. As it spread, commenters began searching for the couple's identities, examining their body language, and speculating about why they seemed so uncomfortable being recorded, besides the obvious.

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By July 25, both social media users and the New York Post had identified the lovebirds as Nathaniel Cullerton, 45, and Kelsey Borenzweig, 29, attorneys at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. According to the company's website, Cullerton is a partner in Wachtell's litigation department, while Borenzweig is an associate in the same department. Neither has publicly confirmed the nature of their relationship, and the video does not establish that either person was having an affair.

The Daily Mail initially reported that Cullerton was married and that Borenzweig had recently been in a relationship; however, the outlet later cited a source who said Borenzweig and her reported partner had separated. Nevertheless, viewers are skeptical.

"Most obvious affair ever," one person wrote.

"That’s definitely her boss," another speculated.

The internet had already begun treating the kiss like the Coldplay concert scandal's unofficial sequel. For those who need a refresher, in July 2025, former Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and the company’s chief people officer, Kristin Cabot, were shown embracing on a stadium screen during a Coldplay concert. Once they realized they were on camera, they ducked out of view.

Footage of their reaction spread like wildfire across social media, amassing over 130 million views. Viewers identified the individuals, and both executives resigned from Astronomer after the video spread. Cabot later filed for divorce, although she has said she and her husband were already separated when the concert took place.

The Central Park video appeared to offer the internet a similar mystery to investigate, while reopening the debate over whether strangers can be turned into content simply because they are in public.

The video has revived a familiar privacy debate

While some viewers focused on whether the lawyers were having an affair, others questioned why Guapõ had filmed two strangers kissing in the first place.

"This is creepy, this not an episode of Cheaters," one TikTok user commented.

"It is morally wrong to film strangers just living their lives outside," another argued. "This? Just two people kissing. Idgaf if they are lawyers, working together, cheating, whatever."

Others saw it differently. One commenter argued that people making out in public "low-key want others to see," while another wrote, "Don’t cheat and we have the right to record in public."

The disagreement soon expanded beyond this particular couple. "We are living in a surveillance state," one user wrote. "Forget about the government, your neighbor is already doing it."

Another blamed the incentives created by social media, arguing that an "attention economy" rewarding views encourages people to point cameras at strangers in the hope of capturing something scandalous.

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That argument has followed social media, specifically TikTok, for years. Videos featuring strangers are now common across the platform, from street interviews and pickup attempts to public pranks and staged acts of kindness. The people who appear in them do not always know they are being filmed or understand how the footage will be presented, especially as smart glasses and other wearable cameras make recording increasingly difficult to notice.

Increased discretion has fueled the rise of pickup, prank, and "troll" accounts that film unsuspecting people. Creators have secretly recorded attempts to get women's phone numbers in gyms, airports, bars, and stores, while others have targeted shoppers and service workers with deliberately uncomfortable pranks. In February, one woman said a man posted smart-glasses footage of himself asking for her number even though she had refused permission for it to be shared.

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The same week the Central Park video went viral, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the platform would remove smart-glasses videos showing people being harassed or taken advantage of.

"We don’t want people to be surreptitiously taking videos of other people and harassing them and then posting them on our platform," Mosseri reportedly said in an Instagram Story.

Instagram also deactivated two pickup artist accounts that used smart glasses to film women in public with more than 1 million followers.

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The Central Park video may not involve the explicit harassment that Instagram's policy targets, but it raises the same underlying concern: a stranger can be filmed without meaningfully agreeing to become content, then identified and judged by millions of people who have only a few seconds of footage to work with.