Emilia Clarke Nearly Died From Two Aneurysms While Working On Game Of Thrones

Game of Thrones is finally coming to an end with its eighth and final season standing by the horizon, but it's only now that we learn that Daenerys actress Emilia Clarke nearly died while working on the first three seasons of the hit HBO series.

The Game of Thrones star recently penned an emotional personal essay where she revealed that she had suffered from two brain aneurysms while she was working on Game of Thrones. In a lengthy article she submitted to The New Yorker, the now 32-year-old actress says that she experienced her first aneurysm while she was in the locker room of a gym in North London during the production of the first season of the series. That was in February 2011.

"I was so fatigued that I could barely put on my sneakers. When I started my workout, I had to force myself through the first few exercises," the actress wrote in the piece, "Then my trainer had me get into the plank position, and I immediately felt as though an elastic band was squeezing my brain. I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but I just couldn't."

After making it back to the locker room, Clarke suddenly became "violently, voluminously ill." The next she said that she remembered was someone calling her parents telling them to meet her at the hospital. There she was diagnosed with a subarachnoid hemorrhage – a life-threatening type of stroke.

The worst part was that after the ordeal, Clarke experienced major issues with her vision, "unbearable pain" as well as memory loss – something which wasn't ideal for an actress.

The second aneurysm happened two years after the first while she was in New York doing a play way back in 2013.

"This time they needed to access my brain in an old-fashioned way — through my skull. And the operation had to happen immediately," she wrote.

Though the actress has been keeping her health issues a secret until now, Clarke says she's now ready to open up and tell her "truth in full."

Game of Thrones Season 8 returns on April 14, 2019.

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