A person who knew nothing about ex-Viacom chairman Tom Freston would have learned the following by attending a luncheon in his honor yesterday:

1. He was recently canned and paid a lot of money in severance, though no one seems to agree on just how much.
2. He is a fan of recreational drugs and may have worked as a smuggler in his youth.
3. He really should have tried harder to buy MySpace.
4. He is a terrible dancer.

As we recently reported, Freston was booked as the Center for Communication's annual honoree well before getting the ax from Viacom honcho Sumner Redstone in September, and the group was pleasantly surprised when he didn't cancel. During the cocktail hour, Radar couldn't help but ask why: "I had plenty of time on my schedule, and you never want to say no to a good meal," Freston deadpanned, as guests Brian Grazer, Harvey Weinstein, Les Moonves, and Russell Simmons mingled nearby.

Now that he's back on the market, would Simmons considering hiring him? "Absolutely not!" the Def Jam founder said, before laying it on thick. "I don't have a job that's worthy of Tom Freston's talents. But I will say this: He has used his talents so wisely for the good of other people that God may be the only one who could hire him. He's like an angel!"

A front-page beheading might not have been this particular angel's preferred exit strategy, but it certainly made for decent roast fodder. News Corp. COO Peter Chernin (whose boss, Rupert Murdoch, was also in attendance) even tried his hand at comedy: "I can only imagine what it's like being screwed by a guy so old he had to take a little blue pill in order to do it," he cracked.

Chernin was promptly upstaged by Stephen Colbert, who, having arrived late, was seen hunkered down in the lobby, pen in hand, tweaking his remarks. At the podium in full conservative-gasbag mode, he mentioned Freston's youthful stint importing clothes from India and Afghanistan. "Were these smokeable clothes, by any chance? I didn't realize it was possible to weave blue jeans out of opium."

Finally, it was time for Freston's speech, which took the form of a guided tour of his MySpace page—get it?—and was heavy on self-deprecation. "I could go on forever, but if I don't leave now, I'll never get a seat at Starbucks," he concluded. "It gets crazy busy over there this time of day."

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• Fired Freston Still Wants His Free Lunch