I knew I should have gone to today’s Friars Club Roast of Matt Lauer! I’d seen Jeffrey Ross try out some of his roast jokes earlier this week at Seth Herzog’s Sweet show at The Slipper Room, but reluctantly didn’t ask Ross to get me into the roast. Argh. Ross wasn’t roastmaster general on this lunch, ceding that honor to Lauer’s Today Show colleague, Al Roker. But. I missed seeing Tom Cruise make a surprise visit to the dais. As the gossipy tabloids reveal, Cruise joked that he and Lauer actually were good friends with altered pics. OK! Magazine relays Lauer’s retorts, which were pretty witty: "Come on, Tom… Stay. We can get a booster seat!" And when he realized
Tom wasn’t returning, he added, "Oh, guess his spaceship has to leave." Nancy O’Dell from Access Hollywood also jotted down some of the barbs Lauer received from Katie Couric, Meredith Vieira and others. (Photo courtesy of NBC)
If it’s glib you’re looking for, Entertainment Tonight‘s Mary Hart interviewed Lauer right before the roast.
UPDATED: The Village Voice’s editor wrote down more raunchy roast lines. And here’s my friend Mandy Stadtmiller from the New York Post getting lots of quotes from the red carpet…
Happy New Year! Happiness and success in 2011.