'Game of Thrones' actress Emilia Clarke says she's had two aneurysms, brain surgeries

The Associated Press</span>
Published Thursday, March 21, 2019 6:32PM EDT
Last Updated Thursday, March 21, 2019 6:36PM EDT

NEW YORK - "Game of Thrones" actress Emilia Clarke revealed Thursday that she has had two life-threatening aneurysms, and two brain surgeries, since the show began.

An unknown actress before landing the role, Clarke had just finished filming her first season as Daenerys Targaryen, the "Mother of Dragons," on the HBO fantasy series when she had the first aneurysm in 2011 at age 24 while working out at a London gym.

"Just when all my childhood dreams seemed to have come true, I nearly lost my mind and then my life," Clarke writes in a first-person story in The New Yorker. "I've never told this story publicly, but now it's time."

Clarke said she had been healthy all her life, but was suffering from serious stress when the artery burst in her brain. Much of it came from constant press questions about the nudity of her character, a conquering queen, in the show's first episode.

"I always got the same question: some variation of 'You play such a strong woman, and yet you take off your clothes. Why?"' Clarke writes. "In my head, I'd respond, 'How many men do I need to kill to prove myself?"'

She said she suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which can very easily be fatal. She was unable to speak her full name even weeks later.

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