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Freston has mulled what his life would be like now if Sumner Redstone had not fired him. He would not have gone to Rwanda last summer with Mike Huckabee, Bill Frist, Tom Daschle, and Cindy McCain. He led the bipartisan group of politicos through malaria hospitals and AIDS clinics to show off ONE's progress. After Rwanda, Freston and a ONE staffer shot over to the Rwanda-Congo-Uganda border to see the mountain gorillas. Then they traveled to eastern Congo, where some 5.4 million people have been killed in more than a decade of wars. "Sometimes I just like the feeling of being a minority and seeing how far you can push yourself in extreme circumstances," Freston says.
That same sensibility draws him back to his first love, Afghanistan. "I feel like Rip Van Winkle," he says about the place, which has endured constant war since the day he left. "I found a country tortured, broken, yearning for peace, yearning for connection with the modern world."
He spends a lot of his time there meeting with government officials, diplomats, and influential entrepreneurs like Saad Mohseni - "the Rupert Murdoch of Afghanistan," as Freston calls the young media titan. He's the fellow who loaned Freston a cameraman to research his movie, tentatively titled Kabul. The plot, based on Freston's adventures, revolves around Afghan Star, a Mohseni-owned TV show that's like American Idol. The story line: Washed-up American music exec runs off to Afghanistan, loses his passport, falls in with a crazy crowd, hooks up with a Pashtun girl who sings Cat Stevens songs on Afghan Star, and, well, this all leads to redemption.
Which brings us back to Oprah, who has found her "business soul mate" in Freston. She's still hoping he'll be more than a consultant to OWN. "We're negotiating his role," says Winfrey, prodding him still. "I'll be stepping up," says Freston, who played a key role in recruiting OWN's new CEO, former MTV president Christina Norman.
He's also been a co-architect of the new network's strategy, including brand identity and programming, both on TV and the web. Winfrey is prohibited by her current TV syndication deal from having her own show on OWN until 2011, so there's lots of airtime to fill. Freston, she says, has been invaluable in helping her expand her idea of what OWN should be: not just a female channel. "I'm so woman-centric," she says. "I'm always thinking about Her. Tom understands people who want to live their best life."
Maybe that's because he's learned to live his. Kathy, his wife of ten years, says Tom used to get up in the middle of the night, turn on the lights, take notes, and wander to the computer at all hours. "It was a nightly occurrence," she says, noting that he now sleeps through the night.
His two sons from his first marriage are out of the house, so Freston is free to roam. At his son Andrew's 2007 graduation from Emerson College, he gave the commencement talk and told the grads to travel early and often, reincarnate when necessary, and keep learning. About setbacks, he said, "Not to worry. The skills you acquire can always be effectively redeployed. You will look back on setbacks and be grateful for the catalyst that came not a moment too soon." (Andrew, 24, works in the music business. Gil, 19, is a freshman at USC and was the subject of a special-education case Freston took all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007.)
The only time Freston has crossed paths with his old boss since his famous setback was last October at Il Piccolino, a restaurant in West Hollywood. "He just said, 'Hi, Tom.' I said, 'Hi, Sumner.' That was it," Freston says. Redstone, who declined an interview request, says through a spokesman, "I continue to admire him and know that he has many successes ahead." Upon hearing that, Freston says, "That's nice." His tone is pensive.
He has hardly watched MTV since he left Viacom. "The firing was truly a punctuation mark," Freston says. "When I got fired, I had a feeling of loss because Viacom had been a passionate long-term relationship. But I got my balance back. I guess it's like getting jilted by a girlfriend, a serious girlfriend. You move on."
It may take a while, but eventually you do. And when the hurt is gone, you commit to the next big thing.