Emilia Clarke’s Brain Aneurysm
Emilia Clarke became known for portraying fierce battle scenes in Game of Thrones, but in 2019, she revealed that she had faced a life-threatening medical crisis of her own. In an essay for The New Yorker titled “A Battle for My Life,” the actress described surviving two brain aneurysms.
Clarke recalled developing an intense headache while at the gym. “I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill,” she wrote. The pain, which she described as “shooting, stabbing, constricting,” continued to intensify. “At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.”
She was rushed to a hospital, where doctors performed a brain scan to determine the cause of her symptoms.
The diagnosis was immediate and serious: a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or SAH, a potentially fatal form of stroke caused by bleeding in the space surrounding the brain. The Emmy nominee learned that she had suffered an aneurysm—an arterial rupture.
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Clarke underwent emergency surgery to seal the aneurysm, describing the pain as “unbearable.” During her recovery, she experienced aphasia, a condition that affected her ability to communicate. At one point, she said, she was “muttering nonsense.”
The aphasia disappeared after about a week, Clarke wrote. She remained in the hospital for a month before being discharged.
During a brain scan in 2013, Clarke discovered that another growth had “doubled in size” and that she required a second operation.
“When they woke me, I was screaming in pain,” she wrote. The procedure had failed, and she had suffered a major bleed. Doctors warned that her chances of survival were precarious unless they operated again. This time, they had to reach her brain through her skull using a more traditional surgical approach.
Clarke has since said that she is now “at a hundred per cent.”