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 a severe headache at the gym, leading to a distressing episode where she became “violently, voluminously ill.” She described the pain as “shooting, stabbing, constricting,” and realized her brain was damaged.

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

The diagnosis was alarming: a subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a life-threatening type of stroke caused by bleeding around the brain. Emilia revealed that she had suffered an aneurysm, an arterial rupture.

She underwent immediate surgery to seal the aneurysm, describing the pain as “unbearable.” During her recovery, she faced 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 clear that my chances of survival 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.”