Emilia Clarke, along with her mother Jenny, has been awarded an MBE degree for their work in setting up a brain injury charity.
The Game Of Thrones star, 37, was beaming from ear to ear as she accepted her award at Windsor Castle on Wednesday.
Emily and her mother co-founder of SameYou, a brain injury recovery charity they set up after the actress survived two brain haemorrhages.
The first, a brain haemorrhage, happened while she was training at a north London gym in 2011.
She founded the charity after being shocked to discover how understaffed rehabilitation services were.
Emilia Clarke has been awarded an MBE degree with her mother Jenny for their work in setting up a brain injury charity
The Game Of Thrones star, 37, beamed from ear to ear as she accepted her award at Windsor Castle on Wednesday
Emilia first suffered a bleed on her brain in 2011, just after the first series of Game Of Thrones finished filming, and lost her ability to speak as she nearly fell into a coma.
Her second bleed in 2013 required surgery after scans showed the bleed had doubled in size. Emilia has previously told how she was one of the ‘really small minority’ of people who survived and were left ‘without consequences’.
She suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage after an aneurysm – a weak area in a blood vessel – burst on the surface of her brain.
They are most common in people aged between 45 and 70 and can cause sufferers to experience extreme fatigue, sleep problems, headaches, visual disturbances and loss of movement, but Emilia previously said she had not suffered from them.
This experience led Emilia and her mother Jennifer to set up the charity SameYou to raise money and help increase access to neurorehabilitation after brain injury and stroke.
Emilia has discussed surgery to restore blood flow, and medication to relieve the pain.
Her life-saving treatment left her with titanium in place of parts of her skull and scars.
The star has previously admitted she was ‘more afraid of getting fired than dying’.
Emily and her mother co-founded SameYou, a brain injury recovery charity they set up after the actress survived two brain haemorrhages (pictured with Prince William)
The first, a brain haemorrhage, happened in 2011 while she was training at a gym in north London.
She founded the charity after being shocked to discover how understaffed rehabilitation services were
Her second bleed in 2013 required surgery after scans showed it had doubled in size, and Emilia has told how she was one of the ‘minority’ to survive and leave ‘without consequences’
Emilia previously admitted she was ‘more afraid of getting fired than dying’ (pictured in Game Of Thrones in 2011)
She told Harper’s Bazaar: ‘I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was afraid of getting fired! I decided, ”This is not something that is going to define me”. I never gave in to any feeling of ‘Why me? This is stupid’. I was like, I have to get back to it.
‘If I’m completely honest, I was very embarrassed by the whole thing. Like I was broken. As if the producers must think I’m some unreliable person they hired.
‘If I hadn’t had a brain haemorrhage, I might have become a real old fart who thought I was the bee’s knee, living in Hollywood. I am so much more aware of what is happening, when it is happening.
‘I don’t worry about failure – I thrive on failure! When something goes wrong, I always think you can fix it. It hurts, it’s scary, but then you can do anything.’
In July 2022, Emilia explained how she would no longer be able to speak after two aneurysms left parts of her brain ‘no longer usable’.
She told Sophie Raworth on BBC1’s Sunday Morning: ‘You get a lot of perspective. The part of my brain that is no longer useful… There’s quite a bit missing and that always makes me laugh.’
Emilia said it was “life-enhancing and magical” to see her mother, who also underwent surgery to remove a brain aneurysm, recognized for her charity work alongside her.
She said: ‘It’s such an incredible honour, such an incredible privilege, and the most important thing for us is that it applies to everyone with a brain injury.
“We were so lucky to have had this near-death experience and to have gone through the darkness of it all and come out of it.”
Other people who will be recognized at the investiture ceremony include Labor MP Dame Siobhain McDonagh, for political and public services; director Betsy Gregory, for dance services; and Lydia Otter, For services to People with Autism and their Families in Oxfordshire.