Emilia Clarke Recalls Surviving Two Brain Hemorrhages: “I Was Convinced I Had Cheated Death”

Actress Emilia Clarke, known for playing Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, has opened up about surviving two brain hemorrhages during her time starring in the fantasy drama. Speaking on the “How To Fail with Elizabeth Day” podcast, Clarke reflected on the emotional and psychological toll of the health crises she endured while filming the hit HBO series. 

“I was just convinced that I had cheated death and I was meant to die. Every day, that's all I could think about,” Clarke said.

The actress recalled suffering her first brain hemorrhage shortly after wrapping Game of Thrones' first season. Clarke said she had been under intense stress following the sudden changes in her life and career when she collapsed during a workout at a London gym.

“The closest thing to describe it is imagine an elastic band just snapping around your brain,” she said. “This insane pressure.”

Clarke said she crawled to the bathroom and, from the pain, before realising something was seriously wrong. The actress said she kept reminding herself that she was “an actor” while waiting for help because she feared losing the role that had transformed her career.

She shared that doctors struggled to identify the cause of her condition and suspected drugs could be involved because of her age. She was later transferred to a specialist hospital after a nurse suggested she undergo a brain scan.

“I was so ashamed that this thing had happened and that the people who had employed me might see me as weak or see me as something that could be broken,” she said.

The actress later suffered a second aneurysm while living in New York and performing in a Broadway play. Doctors had been monitoring the aneurysm through regular scans after discovering it during treatment for the first hemorrhage.

Clarke said a procedure to repair the aneurysm went wrong, forcing doctors to carry out emergency brain surgery.

“My parents were waiting for me, and the doctors would come down every half an hour and say, ‘We think she's going to die,' ” she recalled.

Following the second hemorrhage, Clarke said she struggled emotionally in ways she had not after the first. “The biggest thing that happened to me with the second brain hemorrhage was I shut down emotionally,” she said.

She described becoming hypersensitive and detached from the outside world because she felt her body and brain had failed her in ways that others could not see. “When you have a brain injury, you move around in the world differently. You become very sensitive,” Clarke said. 

The actress also admitted she became fearful whenever she experienced headaches afterward, worrying another hemorrhage was occurring.

While promoting Game of Thrones at San Diego Comic-Con shortly after one of her surgeries, Clarke remembered thinking, “If I'm going to die, I'll do it on live TV.”

Despite the trauma, Clarke said continuing to work ultimately helped her cope emotionally. “Without my work, I don't know what I would have done,” she said.