Sophie Turner Says Coffee Cup-Gate Is All Emilia Clarke's Fault

By Kayleigh Roberts

May 12, 2019

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HBO

Fans of HBO's hit Game of Thrones were left reeling last week after a Starbucks to-go cup was spotted in one scene.

HBO has since CGI-ed the cup out of the episode, but the incident quickly became known as coffee cup-gate.

During an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark on the hit series, jokingly blamed her costar Emilia Clarke for the gaffe.

For years, Game of Thrones has set the standard when it comes to creating an immersive world. When you watch the show, for an hour or so, you feel like Westeros is a real place and you are there with the characters.

But then coffee cup-gate happened.

If you've somehow missed the fallout that is coffee cup-gate, here's a recap. In Season 8, episode three, our GOT heroes were busy celebrating their epic if not totally believable win against the Night King and the White Walkers and, in the midst of the revelry, there was something...odd. One scene clearly showed Emilia Clarke in character as Daenerys Targaryen, sitting at the head table in Winterfell with a takeaway coffee cup on the table in front of her.

Fans promptly noticed the gaffe and HBO almost as promptly CGI-ed it out of the episode, but the screenshots are forever. Behold:

HBO

During an appearance on Friday's episode of The Tonight Show Starred Jimmy Fallon, Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, threw Emilia under the proverbial bus and (jokingly) blamed coffee cup-gate on her costar.

"Let's clear this up," Sophie said. "That's in a different scene, and also, we all have the same cups for all of our water and tea and everything, so I'm gonna just go with, I mean look who it's placed in front of. Emilia Clarke. She's the culprit."

Sophie isn't the only actor on the show who has blamed Emilia. Liam Cunningham, who plays Ser Davos, also pointed the finger at the Mother of Dragons.

"These things happen. It's a big job, people run in, and Emilia probably drinks too much coffee," he said during an interview with Conan O'Brien.

Emilia, however, is not having it and not accepting the blame.

"What a bastard!" she told The Los Angeles Times with a laugh when she heard that Liam had blamed her for the cup. "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."

We'll probably never know who's to blame—unless someone can zoom in on the cup enough to make out a name, that is.

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