Emilia Clarke's aneurism 'shame' saw her fear for her Game of Thrones future
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke has open up about the aftermath of her two brain aneurysms — including the time she thought she was 'about to die' on live TV.
The actor spoke out about how she feels like she ‘cheated death' on Elizabeth Day’s How To Fail podcast on May 13. Clarke, 39, who played Daenerys Targaryen on the hit HBO show, suffered two life-threatening aneurysms during filming.
The first happened in 2011 after wrapping the first season of the show, and the second in 2013, after filming season three. While she's spoken about these health experiences before, she got especially candid in the interview with Day and recalled the moment she suffered her first aneurysm while doing a plank at the gym.
Describing the feeling, she said it felt like an 'elastic band was snapping round her brain'.
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From there on, she added, everything was a blur.
"And in that moment, I knew I was being brain damaged," she added. "Something clicked."
Clarke was then taken to hospital, where she told interviewer Day her parents didn't recognize her because she was in 'so much pain'. She added she feel like she ‘cheated death.'
On the podcast, Clarke also spoke about the shame that came from her illness.
“I was so ashamed that this thing had happened,” she candidly revealed. “And that the people who employed me might see me as weak, or see me as something that could be broken."
Clarke, who was 24-years-old during the first season of GOT added: “I was so young and it was so all-consuming that any repercussions of the injury I just absolutely ignored.”
She told Day that she ‘tried to pretend it didn’t happen in order to keep working,’ revealing that she only told two show runners about what she had been through — who were 'so kind and lovely'.
The star added that she ‘felt the opposite of great’ after recovering. Instead, all she could think about was the fact she ‘should be dead’.
“‘I’m not to be here, this is going to come and get me,’” she thought.
The thoughts stuck with the star, as she recalled suffering a headache six weeks after an operation, during a live MTV interview at San Diago’s Comic-Con.
Due to previous experiences, the GOT star was preparing for the worst, revealing that she thought she was going to die live on air.
“In my head I thought, ‘I’ll do it on live TV,’” she said.
The actor has previously revealed she had missing ‘quite a bit’ of her brain after her health problems.
In 2022, she told BBC’s Sunday Morning that it was ‘remarkable’ she could still speak and live her life normally with no repercussions.
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes, a brain aneurysm is ‘a weak spot on an artery in the brain that balloons and fills with blood,’ which can but pressure on the brain tissue and nerves. These can also rupture and cause a hemorrhage.
Topics: Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones, Health, Podcast, Mental Health
Kiesha Dosanjh