Brain aneurysms nearly killed me, reveals Game of Thrones star
EMILIA Clarke has revealed that she nearly died after suffering two brain aneurysms while filming Game of Thrones.
The 32-year-old, who plays ‘Mother of Dragons’ Daenerys Targaryen, has described the trauma of her ordeal for the first time.
Her first aneurysm – which burst in 2011 after she had filmed the first series of the Sky Atlantic hit – damaged her memory and drove her to ask nurses to ‘pull the plug’.
The actress said: ‘Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life. I’ve never told this story publicly, but now it’s time.’
Miss Clarke had found her fame overwhelming and started exercissurgery. ing with a trainer to relieve stress.
During one session in Crouch End, north London, she started to feel a ‘bad headache’ and ‘fatigue’, she told The New Yorker magazine.
She felt as though there was ‘an elastic band squeezing her brain’ and ran to the changing room where she became ‘violently, voluminously ill’. She added: ‘At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.’
Miss Clarke said to herself ‘I will not be paralysed’ as she tried to keep her ‘memory alive’ by reciting lines from Game of Thrones.
She was rushed to The Whittington Hospital, where an MRI scan discovered she had a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a life-threatening stroke which requires urgent surgery.
Miss Clarke recalled: ‘Brain surgery? I was in the middle of my very busy life – I had no time for brain I was 24 years old.’ The surgery, deemed ‘minimally invasive’ left Miss Clarke initially unable to remember her full name.
She confessed: ‘In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die.’ The actress recovered, but still had a smaller aneurysm which risked ‘popping’ at any time.
Before filming began for series three, a scan revealed the second growth had doubled in size and doctors advised more surgery, where she had ‘bits of my skull replaced by titanium’. She said: ‘I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced.’
The actress spoke out to mark the launch of charity SameYou, which she has founded to provide treatment for people recovering from brain injuries and stroke. The final series of Game of Thrones begins next month.
‘I asked the medical staff to let me die’