Questlove didn’t know about Will Smith’s Oscars slap: I was busy meditating

nypost.com:

Will Smith smacking presenter Chris Rock’s face just moments before the musician’s win for Best Documentary Feature for “Summer of Soul.“Questlove now says he had no idea the altercation between the two men had even occurred because he was practicing Transcendental Meditation before the winner was announced to get into the zone.“When the commercial break was happening, I was just in my [space],” first-time director Questlove said on Monday’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.” “So when I opened my eyes, I didn’t realize — why is everyone so quiet?

Like, I literally was not present for that whole entire moment,” the 51-year-old musician, whose group is the house band on the talk show, told Jimmy Fallon.

Questlove’s win was announced by a shaken Rock, 57, immediately following the incident.“As I’m walking to the stage, I’m kind of putting two and two together, and I realized that that was a real moment, like, maybe three seconds before I spoke words,” the filmmaker added. “I was not present at all.

I was just in a blank space.”A source told Page Six Monday that Questlove and his producers — Joseph Patel, Robert Fyvolent and David Dinerstein — were incredibly excited to win the honor, but found the whole ordeal “odd.”“What can one say?