Emilia Clarke "wanted to disappear" when she suffered her second brain aneurysm.
The ‘Game of Thrones’ star experienced two health scares in 2011 and again 2013 – but she only went public with her ordeal earlier this year – and was devastated that she had to go through the traumatic event while living in the public eye.
Speaking to Wonderland magazine, she said: "I do feel like the brain haemorrhages are the literal, physical embodiment of what it is to be attacked on a social media, because I didn’t want to look anyone in the eye, and I didn’t want anyone to recognise me. I wanted to disappear completely, to wipe myself off the face of the earth, because I couldn’t handle the level of interaction. Because I felt totally laid bare, totally vulnerable, totally in pain."
And, although she was fighting for her life, the 33-year-old actress was more concerned about who would see her in hospital with tubes coming out of her head.
She explained: "[With] the second one, I lost a lot of hope; I lost a lot of optimism. That’s insane bad luck. But there I was in a f***ing American hospital with drains coming out of my head, fully swollen, full of all the drugs they give you, and all I could think was, ‘please don’t recognise me, please don’t recognise me, please don’t recognise me.’ "
The headache she experienced as a result of the aneurysm was "the worst pain you can possibly imagine" and she was terrified that she would end up brain damaged.
She said: "As I was throwing up I knew I was being brain damaged, but I didn’t know how I knew. And I was like, no, f*** this, not today, it’s not happening.
"I was wiggling fingers and toes, thinking of lines from the season, trying to do everything I could to keep myself conscious because I could feel myself slipping into a coma."
Emilia Clarke ‘wanted to disappear’ after aneurysm
