Emilia Clarke, The Mother of Dragons, is finally breaking her silence (just like she breaks chains) on the whole Game of Thrones-Starbucks “controversy” that has spread far and wide across the Internet since Episode 4 aired this past Sunday.
During an appearance on Conan last night, Liam Cunningham (who plays Ser Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight on the show) joked that Clarke “probably drinks too much coffee.” Cunningham also gifted O’Brien with a Starbucks cup.
“What a bastard!” Clarke told The Los Angeles Times with a laugh. “I don’t even drink Starbucks. I have no idea whose it was. Liam’s a cheeky one. The funny thing is in Belfast, there is no craft coffee selling Starbucks. Unless we’ve got the Americans in, some hotshot producer, and then we’ll have Starbucks lying around.”
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, fans were in an uproar after noticing that HBO had left what looked like a Starbucks coffee cup in a scene of the ever-popular high-fantasy series. Everyone from HBO to Starbucks poked fun at the oversight, but the network did end up digitally removing the object from the episode. As it turns out, the cup wasn’t even from Starbucks, although the company gained more than $2 billion in free advertising from the whole affair.
“You’ve never seen a Game of Thrones cast member with a Starbucks in their hand because we don’t get them,” Clarke continued. “We don’t get to be like, ‘Yo, somebody go out and get me a mocha choco latte.’ I’ve never had Starbucks.”
And besides, the actress is true to her British roots and prefers tea to coffee anyway.
“My house is just littered with teas everywhere,” she finished.
Episode 5 of Season 8 (the penultimate installment) airs Sunday on HBO at 9pm EST.
