Emilia Clarke is over the moon after Game of Thrones fans raised thousands of dollars for her charity SameYou, which supports people recovering from brain injury and stroke, in honor of her performance as Daenerys Targaryen. At the time of writing, the online fundraising campaign has amassed at least £83,817 (about $105,877) since its launch on May 22.
Clarke responded to the fundraiser in an Instagram video yesterday when the total was still below £38,000 (about $48,000); it’s more than doubled since then. “I’m so incredibly, like, moved and blown away and grateful and thank you and thank you and thank you,” she said in the clip, bursting with joy. “It’s extraordinary what you guys have done. You’ve given me a wrap gift; this is what this is. I’m genuinely completely lost for words.”
BuzzFeed News reports that the campaign was started by a Reddit user elle_ellaria, who first posted the link in r/FreeFolk. (That’s the same subreddit where disgruntled fans first posted the petition to redo GoT Season 8, which was originally meant to be a joke.) According to her description in the fundraising page, she created the campaign as a “gesture of love and support from the fandom to the entire cast & crew” and especially to Clarke, “who poured her very soul into her character.”
The actress was visibly touched in her Instagram message. “You guys are literally helping me, and in doing that you are helping us change the world, change the world of recovery, change the world of brain injury,” she said. Clarke also put the link in her Instagram bio.
The actress launched SameYou in March when she first publicly revealed that she suffered from two brain aneurysms in between filming earlier seasons of Game of Thrones. If you’d also like to donate to the viral campaign, you can do so here. DONATE
