“I drove all the way, trying to be at peace and zen. Keep the feeling,” he explained. “I came back and was shocked.”
Jared Leto is remembering the moment he left a meditation retreat only to discover that the coronavirus had been declared a pandemic.
During Monday’s episode of “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon”, the actor shared his reaction to what he discovered when he returned to Los Angeles after a 12-day silent meditation retreat in the desert in early March.
Jared Leto just found out about the coronavirus pandemic after a silent 12-day retreat
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“The idea is that you go away, get rid of the phone, get rid of distractions, get rid of everything and just meditate,” began Leto, describing the retreat.
“When I left, there were about 150 cases,” he recalled. “And in that short time, when I left, there was a shutdown, a state of emergency and the whole world changed.”
“But when we were there, they didn’t tell us [about the pandemic]”, Noted Leto, adding that the participants did not have access to their phones or television.
The Oscar winner said he didn’t call the phone until he returned home to LA.
“I drove all the way, trying to be at peace and zen. Keep the feeling,” he explained. “I came back and was shocked. It was like Rip Van Winkle.”
“It’s like a ‘Twilight Zone’ episode, but in real life,” said Fallon, to which Leto replied, “It was shocking. I had a great tool for dealing with stress and things and life, but I don’t think anything can prepare any of us for what we all went through in the beginning. “
Leto continued: “It was like reaching the zombie apocalypse.”
On March 16, Leto revealed to fans that he found out about the worsening health crisis when he returned from his long trip. A few days earlier, on March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the coronavirus a pandemic.
“Wow. 12 days ago, I started a silent meditation in the desert”, Leto tweeted at the time. “We were totally isolated. No phone, no communication, etc. We had no idea what was going on outside the facility.”
“I left yesterday for a very different world”, he added in another post. “One that has changed forever. Mind-blowing – to say the least.”
