Emilia Clarke reveals terrifying truth behind secret brain Aneurysms

Emilia Clarke has opened up about the terrifying moment she feared she was “meant to die” after suffering a second brain haemorrhage.

She described the experience as something that left her emotionally shattered.

The 39-year-old Game of Thrones star revealed she was convinced she had “cheated death” and could feel nothing but fear in the aftermath of her medical emergencies, which struck while she was at the height of her global fame as Daenerys Targaryen.

Speaking candidly on the podcast How To Fail with Elizabeth Day, Emilia admitted: “I was just convinced I had cheated death and I was meant to die. Every day that’s all I could think about.”

Her first brain haemorrhage hit shortly after filming season one of the hit HBO series. 

She recalled collapsing during a gym workout, describing the pain as “like an elastic band snapping around my brain”.

In a desperate moment, she said she crawled to a bathroom and began vomiting, instantly fearing the worst. 

“I knew I was being brain damaged,” she said, adding that her thoughts quickly turned to whether she could even continue working on Game of Thrones.

Despite the severity of her condition, Me Before You actress kept her ordeal largely private, only informing the show’s creators, D.B. Weiss and David Benioff.

A second aneurysm later struck while she was in New York performing on Broadway, with doctors forced into emergency surgery after complications arose. 

“My parents were waiting and doctors kept coming down saying, ‘We think she’s going to die’,” she revealed.

Emilia said the trauma left her emotionally withdrawn, explaining: “You move differently in the world after a brain injury.”

Now, she says she is in a “very good spot”, undergoing regular scans and calling herself one of the rare survivors of such severe cases.

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