“Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke gave a moving speech while being honored at Variety‘s Power of Women London, presented by Lifetime, about surviving two brain hemorrhages in her 20s.
Clarke went in depth about surviving the hemorrhages in her cover story last week, but still maintained a sense of humor 15 years after the health scare.
“For a number of years, I felt that I had cheated death, and it was coming to get me,” she said. “I truly felt like I had done something wrong, and I shouldn’t be here. I also thought it ruined my ability to act — which some people might agree with!”
Clarke and her mother founded the charity SameYou in 2019, when she publicly revealed what she had been through, and their goal has been to help fellow survivors on brain bleeds. “When I finally shared my story in 2019, we were overwhelmed by the response,” she said at Power of Women London. “Mostly young people reached out to tell us their own stories. Today we have tens of thousands of survivors in our community saying essentially the same thing: the journey to healing feels like falling off the edge of a cliff without anyone there to catch you.”
The “Game of Thrones” star was honored alongside Emma Corrin, Hannah Waddingham, Suki Waterhouse and Cynthia Erivo. Read her full speech below and watch the video above:
