Update 9/4: Emilia Clarke has shared unseen photos from her brain aneurysm ordeal. Writing in The New Yorker last month, the 32-year-old actress admitted that she had suffered two "life-threatening" aneurysms, the first one happening when she was 24 in 2011.
Now, speaking on CBS Sunday Morning, the star has revealed never-seen-before photos and spoken more about her terrifying ordeal. ‘Very quickly I realised I couldn’t stand and I couldn’t walk, and in that moment I knew I was being brain damaged,' she said. 'The second one there was a bit of my brain that actually died, if your brain doesn’t get blood to it for a minute it will just no longer work. It’s like you short-circuit.’
She also added that her role as Daenerys Targaryen in Game Of Thrones helped her through the surgeries, saying: ‘You got on set and you play a badass and you walk through fire, and that became the thing that saved me from considering my mortality.’
Emilia Clarke has shared how she ‘wanted to die’ as she had to undergo brain surgery between two seasons of Game of Thrones, after she suffered a life-threatening stroke. Writing in The New Yorker, the actress said she suffered two 'life-threatening' aneurysms, the first one happening when she was 24 in 2011. Emilia, who plays Daenerys Targaryen, said the life-saving surgery led to 'terrible anxiety' and panic attacks. The star discovered the first aneursym while she was working out. 'I reached the toilet, sank to my knees and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill,' she said. 'Meanwhile, the pain – shooting, stabbing, constricting pain – was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening – my brain was damaged.'
'In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug,' the 32-year-old added. 'I asked the medical staff to let me die.' After the surgery, a condition called aphasia set in for a week, meaning she was 'muttering nonsense' and unable to remember her own name - leaving her understandably worried about her acting career. While she recovered enough to film the second series of GoT, she said that she felt ‘so woozy, so weak, that I thought I was going to die.’
A third of sufferers die immediately, or soon afterwards, from a subarachnoid haemorrhage, which is what doctors diagnosed her with. It is the first time she has spoken publicly about her ordeal, but she says she is now feeling better and has helped to develop a charity - called SameYou - to help young people with brain injuries.
'I know from personal experience that the impact of brain injury is shattering,' she said. 'Recovery is long-term and rehabilitation can be difficult to access. Brain injury can be an invisible illness and the subject is often taboo. We must help young adults take control of their recovery and allow them to open up without fear of stigma or shame.'