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Home / Entertainment

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke 'wanted to die' during health battle

NZ Herald
8 Apr, 2019 11:07 PM2 mins to read

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Emilia Clarke shared images from her hospital visit on CBS' Sunday Morning. Photo / CBS via YouTube

Emilia Clarke shared images from her hospital visit on CBS' Sunday Morning. Photo / CBS via YouTube

Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke says she "wanted to die" when she was hospitalised due to two brain aneurysms.

Clarke, who plays Daenerys Targaryen in the HBO series, has shared images from the ordeal during an interview with Tracy Smith on the US chat show Sunday Morning.

The 32-year-old actress suffered the aneurysms in 2011 at the age of 24, the same year Game of Thrones began.

Clarke told Smith that in the second aneurysm, a part of her brain "died".

Emilia Clarke suffered two brain aneurysms in 2011. Photo / CBS via YouTube
Emilia Clarke suffered two brain aneurysms in 2011. Photo / CBS via YouTube
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"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," she said.

"So I had that, and they didn't know what it was. So they literally were looking at my brain going 'well we think it could be her concentration, it could be her peripheral vision.'

"I always say it's my taste in men. It's no longer there."

Clarke says at her lowest moments, she was ready to let go. "In my worst moments, I wanted to pull the plug. I asked the medical staff to let me die."

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The actress says she feared she would never act again, which is her "reason for living".

Emilia Clarke shared images from her hospital visit on CBS' Sunday Morning. Photo / CBS via YouTube
Emilia Clarke shared images from her hospital visit on CBS' Sunday Morning. Photo / CBS via YouTube
Emilia Clarke in hospital. Photo / CBS
Emilia Clarke in hospital. Photo / CBS

"There was all these funny things and for a very long time I thought it was my ability to act.

"I really, really did. That was a deep paranoia from the first one as well, what if something has short circuited in my brain and I can't act any more.

"I mean literally it's been my reason for living for a very long time."

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