As Matt Lauer was being roasted by the Friars Club on Friday, a special guest showed up to take some jabs at the “Today” show host – Tom Cruise.
Three years after Cruise and Lauer’s infamous interview on “Today,” where the actor called the host “glib” while discussing his views on psychiatric medicine and Scientology, Cruise hit the Friars Club for a little roast revenge.
According to Access Hollywood’s Nancy O’Dell, who was inside the roast and had been asked by Matt to sit on his dais, Cruise was introduced following a taped message from Ryan Seacrest. He walked out and hugged Lauer on stage.
Tom told the audience that he and Matt were really good friends who even vacationed together, and showed mock-up photos of them sitting in inner tubes in a pool while having drinks, and another shot of the two men sharing a jet ski.
But he also pointed out how he and Matt were different types.
”[I go from] international movies sets to amazing parties to international movies set to amazing parties, never knowing what’s going to happen next. You have found happiness doing the same thing every day,” Cruise said. “You sit on a couch all day and interview the car from ‘Knight Rider.’”
“Lose my number, you glib putz,” Cruise said as his parting words to Lauer. “Cruise, out!”
Not to be outdone, the roastee got in a jab of his own.
“Tom, can you stay? We can get a booster seat,” Lauer laughed.
The roast was hosted by Lauer’s “Today” show colleague, Al Roker, who joked after Cruise’s exit, “His spaceship has to leave soon.”
Some of the other celebrities also on hand to skewer Lauer were Meredith Vieira, Jeffrey Ross, Martha Stewart and Katie Couric.
When Couric, Lauer’s former “Today” co-host, took the stage to a round of applause, she offered some quick barbs at herself, before moving on to her former co-worker.
Couric joked she hadn’t received that much applause since she announced she was leaving NBC, adding the 1,900-person audience at the roast was a bigger audience than what she has on “CBS Evening News.”
She went on to describe her relationship with Lauer as “yin and yang.”
“I was really good, he wasn’t. He’d ask for a raise, I’d get it,” Couric joked.
Even his current “Today” show counterpart, Vieira, took a shot at Lauer.
“Of all the people I’ve worked with, you’re number 11,” she said. “See you on Monday, a******.”
After all the roasters had their turn, it was finally time for the man of the hour to take the mic.
As Lauer spoke, he talked about the infamous interview with Cruise and the adjective the actor threw out at him.
“I went home after the interview and looked up ‘glib,’ and then I was burning mad!” Lauer joked, adding that he and Cruise have now “officially buried the hatchet.”
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