Game of Thrones' Dragon Queen comes clean over coffee cup incident

Emilia Clarke makes Instagram post admitting responsibility for the world's most famous recyclable receptacle

Empty cups, whopping mistakes and questionable medieval history come up in the Twitter thread. HBO via AP

Emilia Clarke, aka Game of Thrones' Daenerys Targaryen, has come clean about "coffee cup-gate," and it seems she is the one responsible for the most talked-about incident of the eighth and final season so far.

Forget the epic Battle of Winterfell, the fate of the Night King or the quest to sit on the Iron Throne. What fans really want to know is “who left the coffee cup on the table in the feast at the beginning of episode four?”

HBO had the cup edited out of the scene for repeat showings as soon as it was spotted by eagle-eyed viewers, but it hasn’t stopped the caffeinated character being the most popular new cast member on the show for years.

Now Clarke has finally held her hands up. In a post on Instagram, she has showed a shot of herself, co-star Peter Dinklage and former cast member Jason Momoa on the set of the latest series, and she’s holding none other than what appears to be the world’s most famous drinking vessel.

The actress captions the pic sheepishly: “Did I just stumble upon the truth here?! The cup bearer does not drinketh the Starbucks tea... “

Clarke is also quick to point out that Momoa's presence is not a spoiler, just a "lost wanderer coming home for a mid-filming cuppa...." so it seems that the Aquaman star was just dropping by to catch up rather than preparing for a dramatic resurrection of his long dead character Khal Drogo.

Nonetheless, it seems that even just a visit from her long-deceased husband was enough to get Daenerys’ heart a flutter – so much so that she left her very twentieth century cup in shot.

Given that the offending cast member was the Mother of Dragons herself, it seems likely she’ll escape any punishment beyond a mild ticking off from the continuity department, at least assuming we don’t discover she left her car parked by the gates of the Red Keep in next week’s episode.