Emilia Clarke’s Brain Aneurysm

Emilia Clarke filmed battle scenes for Game of Thrones, but in 2019, she published an essay in The New Yorker titled “A Battle for My Life.”

Emilia Clarke experienced severe headaches while at the gym, recalling, “I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill.” The pain was described as “shooting, stabbing, constricting” and worsened significantly. She realized that her brain was in distress.

She was promptly taken to the hospital for a brain scan.

“The diagnosis was quick and ominous: a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke caused by bleeding into the space surrounding the brain,” the Emmy nominee explained. “I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture.”

Emilia underwent immediate surgery to seal the aneurysm, describing the pain as “unbearable.” During her recovery, she experienced aphasia and found herself “muttering nonsense.”

A week later, Emilia noted that “the aphasia passed,” and she was discharged from the hospital a month after her admission.

During a 2013 brain scan, she discovered that a growth had “doubled in size,” necessitating another surgery.

“When they woke me, I was screaming in pain,” she recounted. “The procedure had failed. I had a massive bleed and the doctors made it plain that my chances of surviving were precarious if they didn’t operate again. This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way—through my skull.”

Fortunately, Emilia shared that she is now “at a hundred percent.”