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Emilia Clarke shares harrowing photos from her time in hospital

Emilia Clarke talks further about health problems. Photo: Getty Images
Emilia Clarke talks further about health problems. Photo: Getty Images

Emilia Clarke has shared never-before-seen photos from her traumatic hospitalisation, after opening up about how she had survived two brain aneurysms.

The Game of Thrones actor opened up about her experience in a personal essay published in The New Yorker, and has now shared photos from her time in hospital when she was just 24.

Emilia spoke about her journey during an appearance on CBS News.

“With the second one, there was a bit of my brain that actually died,” she said. “If a part of your brain doesn’t get blood to it for a minute, it will just no longer work. It’s like you short circuit. So, I had that. And they didn’t know what it was.

Emilia Clarke shared hospital photos during a TV interview. Photo: CBS
Emilia Clarke shared hospital photos during a TV interview. Photo: CBS

“They literally were looking at the brain and being like, ‘Well, we think it could be her concentration, it could be her peripheral vision [affected].'”

For Emilia, though, she found the humour.

“I always say it’s my taste in men that’s no longer there! That’s the part of my brain, yeah, my decent taste in men.”

The actor said her recovery was helped by being able to lose herself in such an empowering character like Daenerys, revealing it “saved me from considering my own mortality”.

Emilia Clarke was in hospital in 2011. Photo: CBS
Emilia Clarke was in hospital in 2011. Photo: CBS

“You go on the set, and you play a badass character, and you walk through fire, and you speak to hundreds of people, and you’re being asked to be – to work as hard as you possibly can,” she said.

Emilia detailed the symptoms she suffered that first suggested she was not well in her New Yorker essay:

“My trainer had me get into the plank position, and I immediately felt as though an elastic band were squeezing my brain. I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but I just couldn’t. I told my trainer I had to take a break. Somehow, almost crawling, I made it to the locker room. I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill. Meanwhile, the pain—shooting, stabbing, constricting pain—was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.”

With additional reporting by Hanna Flint.

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