‘Game of Thrones’ actress Emilia Clarke is a 'warrior,' says Lena Headey on co-star's scary health battle
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Lena Headey (L) paid a sweet tribute to her fellow "Game of Thrones" cast member Emilia Clarke. (Getty)
Following actress Emilia Clarke’s revelation in a New Yorker essay this week that she underwent two brain surgeries and nearly lost her life, the “Mother of Dragons” has received support from a fellow “Game of Thrones” cast member: Lena Headey.
Headey — who plays the infamous Cersei Lannister on the HBO series, which is entering its final season in April — took to Instagram to name Clarke as “Thursday’s MVP.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“It took me a while to know this woman (there are 64000 of us after all) Not until she spoke to me about her experience did I fully realize the warrior she truly is (MOD for real x209840000) she does really great things for causes that deserve it. She’s kind and determined and funny and aware. #Thursday’s MVP ... Here’s to @emilia_clarke,” the actress wrote alongside a photo of Clarke, 32.
“I love everything about this exchange,” one fan wrote in response.
“From one Queen to another…” a second added.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“You’re both wonderful, amazing people!” a third said.
In an essay published Thursday by The New Yorker, titled "A Battle for My Life," Clarke revealed she almost died while filming the popular show.
In February 2011, just as "Thrones" was premiering, Clarke underwent her first of two brain surgeries and an extensive and grueling recovery period.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While working out with her trainer in London, she suffered from a ruptured brain aneurysm. At 24 years old, she says she "started to feel a bad headache coming on" but pushed through only to collapse in the bathroom. After being rushed to the hospital and having an MRI, the results were dire.
"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," she detailed in the article. "I’d had an aneurysm, an arterial rupture. As I later learned, about a third of SAH patients die immediately or soon thereafter. For the patients who do survive, urgent treatment is required to seal off the aneurysm, as there is a very high risk of a second, often fatal bleed. If I was to live and avoid terrible deficits, I would have to have urgent surgery. And, even then, there were no guarantees."
Eventually, she was able to return to the “Game of Thrones” set. But in 2013, the star learned she had another “smaller aneurysm” that she was told could “pop” at any time. She then underwent a second surgery.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The recovery was even more painful than it had been after the first surgery. I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced. I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium," she wrote.
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Thankfully, Clarke said she “survived," adding “in the years since my second surgery I have healed beyond my most unreasonable hopes. I am now at a hundred percent.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"There is something gratifying, and beyond lucky, about coming to the end of 'Thrones.' I’m so happy to be here to see the end of this story and the beginning of whatever comes next," she concluded.
Fox News' Jessica Napoli contributed to this report.