Emilia Clarke has revealed a raw and honest story about the moment online cruelty broke her. She said it happened while she was lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a brain aneurysm that almost killed her. Her father read her a newspaper article, but it was not about her survival. It was about the size of her butt.
The ‘Game of Thrones‘ star spoke about this in an interview. It also explains why she has followed one strict rule for herself; she has not Googled her own name in over ten years.
The Devastating Article Read in Emilia Clarke’s Hospital Bed
Clarke became famous very quickly in her twenties for playing Daenerys Targaryen. She said the bad moment happened back in 2011, shortly after she survived her first brain aneurysm, a subarachnoid haemorrhage. While she was trying to heal, a writer decided to critique her body.
“Sitting in my hospital bed after the first brain injury, my dad was reading the newspaper [and] there was some article in it about the size of my bum,” Clarke said. “It was read to me and it destroyed me. Completely destroyed me.”
She knows the writer probably meant it as a weird kind of compliment. The article suggested she had a “regular-sized butt on TV,” which stood out from typical Hollywood standards. But the timing made it especially awful. “I’m sure they were trying to be like, ‘Hey, look at that, a regular-size butt on TV. How nice,'” she said. “But that robbed me of any desire to ever read anything about myself. And I’ve never Googled myself.“
Why Emilia Clarke Has a No Google Rule
To understand how bad this was, you have to remember what she was going through. She finished filming the first season of ‘Game of Thrones‘ in February 2011 and was only 24 years old when the aneurysm struck. She later described the feeling as if “an elastic band just snapped in my head.“
In case you missed it: Why Emilia Clarke’s First Day On ‘Game Of Thrones’ Set Ended In Tears
Doctors diagnosed her with a subarachnoid haemorrhage, a serious stroke caused by bleeding around the brain. She later needed two major surgeries, and part of her skull was replaced with titanium. Yet, instead of feeling sorry for a young woman fighting for her life, a critic chose to comment her body. “I was a kid, man. Cut me some goddamn slack,” she once said to Yahoo Entertainment.
That moment in the hospital set a hard boundary for her. She refuses to read anything about herself online, and says that rule is the reason she has survived in Hollywood. “I learned it very early, and I don’t look at anything at all ever, ever, ever,” Clarke said. “People have a lot of opinions on my butt.“
She does not even look at posts where she is tagged on social media. “If you hate me, I don’t need to know,” she told the Event Magazine. “It messes me up.“
Emilia Clarke’s Philosophy for Surviving Fame
Clarke’s rule is simple. “For me, it’s the recipe for success to face fame and the failures that can result from it. When you try not to link self-esteem to what others perceive as success, then you don’t link it to what some may perceive as failure.”
This story comes out as the show turns 15. Clarke knows ‘Game of Thrones‘ was a “racy show” full of opinions and harsh looks, but she was too young to handle all that attention. She has made peace with her past and even jokes that her brain surgeries only ruined her “taste in men.” However, she still remembers that hospital room. It is the reason she chooses to stay in the dark instead of searching for herself online.
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