How The View’s Sunny Hostin “Almost Died” While Filming

Emilia
Clarke’s
Brain
Aneurysm

Emilia
Clarke
filmed
battle
scenes
for

Game
of
Thrones,
but
in
2019,
she
published

an
essay
in

The
New
Yorker
titled “A
Battle
for
My
Life.”

Having
a
bad
headache
at
the
gym, “I
reached
the
toilet,
sank
to
my
knees,
and
proceeded
to
be
violently,
voluminously
ill,”
the
actress
wrote. “Meanwhile,
the
pain—shooting,
stabbing,
constricting
pain—was
getting
worse.
At
some
level,
I
knew
what
was
happening:
my
brain
was
damaged.”

She
was
taken
to
the
hospital
for
a
brain
scan.

“The
diagnosis
was
quick
and
ominous:
a
subarachnoid
hemorrhage
(SAH),
a
life-threatening
type
of
stroke,
caused
by
bleeding
into
the
space
surrounding
the
brain,”
the
Emmy
nominee
added. “I’d
had
an

aneurysm,
an
arterial
rupture.”

Emilia
had
immediate
surgery
to
seal
the
aneurysm,
calling
the
pain “unbearable.”
While
she
was
recovering,
she
continued,
she
experienced
aphasia
and
was “muttering
nonsense.”

A
week
later, “the
aphasia
passed,”
Emilia
added,
and
she
left
the
hospital
a
month
after
being
admitted.

At
a
2013
brain
scan,
she
learned
a
growth “doubled
in
size”
and
that
she
needed
surgery
again.

“When
they
woke
me,
I
was
screaming
in
pain,”
she
wrote. “The
procedure
had
failed.
I
had
a
massive
bleed
and
the
doctors
made
it
plain
that
my
chances
of
surviving
were
precarious
if
they
didn’t
operate
again.
This
time
they
needed
to

access
my
brain
in
the
old-fashioned
way—through
my
skull.”