Emilia Clarke thought it would be better ‘to die on live TV’ than be fired from ‘Game of Thrones’ after suffering brain hemorrhage

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Emilia Clarke recently revealed how she felt when she suffered two brain injuries during her time on 'Game of Thrones'.

The 37-year-old actress who played the now iconic Daenerys Targaryen suffered bleeds on her brain in 2011 and 2013 which she said left her "altered on a dramatic level." 

Emilia Clarke feared being fired from ‘Game of Thrones’ after brain injury

Emilia suffered a hemorrhage shortly after the first season of 'Game of Thrones' concluded, nearly putting her in a coma and impairing her speech.

After scans revealed that her second had doubled in size, Emilia had to have surgery. Emilia has previously stated that she is among the "very small minority" of survivors who experienced "no consequences."

She opened up about her injury and told Big Issue, "When you have a brain injury, it alters your sense of self on such a dramatic level, all of the insecurities you have going into the workplace quadruple overnight."

"The first fear we all had was, 'Oh my God, am I going to get fired? Am I going to get fired because they think I'm not capable of completing the job?'"

The ’Me before you' star's brain hemorrhages occurred between filming seasons of 'Game of Thrones'. Clarke recalled fearing that she would die from another brain hemorrhage brought on by stress and reportedly thought to herself at the time, “Well, if I’m going to die, I better die on live TV.”

In February Emilia and her mother Jenny were both awarded MBEs for their work establishing a brain injury charity. After the actress's illness, she was horrified to learn how understaffed rehabilitation programs were, so she and her partner formed SameYou.

Emilia's brain surface aneurysm, or weak spot in a blood artery, broke, causing the subarachnoid hemorrhage. Although Emilia previously claimed she was unaffected, they are most frequent in persons between the ages of 45 and 70 and can cause patients to experience great fatigue, difficulty sleeping, headaches, vision difficulties, and loss of movement.

Emilia has discussed having surgery to restore blood flow, as well as medication to relieve the pain. Her life-saving treatment has left her with titanium in place of sections of her skull and scarring.

Emilia Clarke wasn't afraid of dying

The star has previously admitted that she was "more afraid of being fired than dying."

She told Harper's Bazaar, "I wasn't afraid of dying. I was afraid of being fired! I decided: ''This is not something that's going to define me'. I never gave into any feeling of 'Why me? This sucks'. I was just like gotta get back on it."

"If I'm being brutally honest, the whole thing made me feel very ashamed. Like I was broken. As though the producers must think I'm an unreliable person that they've hired," she added.

"If I hadn't had a brain hemorrhage, I might have turned into a right old d**khead, thinking I was the bee's knees, living in Hollywood. I'm so much more aware of what's happening, in the moment that it's happening." 

She added, "I don't worry about failure  I thrive on failure! If something goes wrong, I always think you can fix it. It hurts, it's scary, but then you can do anything." 

Emilia stated in July 2022 that it's remarkable that she can talk because two aneurysms rendered certain areas of her brain "no longer usable."

She told BBC1, "You gain a lot of perspective. The amount of my brain that is no longer usable... There's quite a bit missing which always makes me laugh." 

Emilia said it was 'life-enhancing and magical' to see her mother, who has also had surgery to remove a brain aneurysm, recognized for her charity work alongside her.

She said, "It is such an incredible honor, such an incredible privilege, and the most important thing for us is that it's for everybody with brain injury.

"To have this near-death experience and to have gone through the sort of the darkness of it all, and then come out of it, we're so lucky."