There’s a few celebrities that caught my attention in the past couple of weeks and I felt the urge to look at their charts and talk about them a bit. What I’ve quickly realized is that… they’re all Aries risings and we just went through a total eclipse in Aries and are still battling through a Mercury retrograde (also in Aries). So, this is an Aries rising-only astro news compilation.
Shakira
During the recent Easter break I found myself having a Shakira moment, reminiscing on her old hits and belting out Underneath Your Clothes. I thought that’s probably thanks to Mercury just stationing retrograde, which often makes people go back to old stuff. And then I thought… What if everyone’s having a Shakira moment now?
And this is when I realized suddenly she’s everywhere: giving a surprise show at Times Square, being a guest on Hot Ones, giving a ton of new interviews that flood my YouTube recommend page. She just released a new album but seems like this is a huge reset for her and her name is, once again, on everyone’s lips. Shakira is an Aries rising and an Aries Venus with nodes in her 1st and 7th axis – she’s not quite an eclipse baby (although almost a Full Moon baby!) but nodes close to her axis may make her sensitive to eclipse seasons. Her ascendant ruler, Mars, is exalted in the 10th house in Capricorn, giving her a slow and steady rise to success and a grounded, solidified place in the public eye.
Interestingly, she received an MTV Vanguard award just last autumn at a time of her exact reverse nodal return, which already foreshadowed things for her.
Her new album was released on March 22nd this year, just a couple of days after Sun ingressed into Aries and a few days before the eclipse. What’s important to note that she’s also going through her Jupiter return in Taurus. Mercury retrograding in her 1st house makes people and the media reminisce on her career and what she achieved up to this point. Of course a planet retrograding in someone’s 1st house can cause a hiccup of some sorts and that happened in her case as well – there was a small outrage surrounding her comments on the last year’s Barbie movie and how she and her sons hated it.
Jojo Siwa
Switching lanes let’s get to someone that is now talked about in the media excessively but for the wrong reasons and that is… Jojo Siwa. Now, I had to read up on her after I saw people poking fun at the way she’s presenting herself but apparently, she was all rainbows and sunshines until she changed her color palette to black and is now calling herself edgy and groundbreaking. She was on Toddlers and Tiaras I believe… so you get the vibe.
Siwa is a Taurus stellium (makes sense with the bows and glitter) with Aries rising, of course. Her ascendant ruler is right next to Neptune in the 11th house, which can bring potential problems when it comes to how she’s being received by the public. The badazzledness of the sweet sweet Taurus is amped up by the flashy Jupiter in Leo (opposed by that Mars and squared by Mercury, certainly adding to the loudness of her personality and the, let’s say, overall audacity).
The nodes are pretty significant for her as well, as her Sun is accompanied by the north node (really intensifying the Sun’s radiant quality) and… she’s actually an eclipse baby, being born in the middle of the eclipse season, only three days after a total lunar eclipse in Scorpio. So we have double the strength of having eclipses in her 1st-7th house axis, as well as being an eclipse child in general.
So the “rebranding” seems, well, on brand for her at this time. But again, Mercury retrograding in her 1st house seems to not serve her well, especially given she has it retrograde natally as well. Uranus being co-present in her sign, a bubbly Taurus, paired with Jupiter, which is still a pretty badazzled planet, didn’t result in a true 180° switch that she aimed for. In turn we got a somewhat inflated (Jupiter) sense of self and a warped view of things.
But the plus side is that the current Jupiter transit also helped her gain popularity as her video for the new song passed 23 million views on YouTube. Talk about expansion!
Rihanna
Rihanna didn’t make a comeback in the same sense Shakira did but she surely made people talk. The singer is allegedly an Aries rising but she also has quite an Aries planetary party with Moon, Venus and Jupiter there as well. And in a true Aries fashion, even if she’s not necessarily doing much with her career at the moment, she made sure to remind everyone of herself, especially that she’s also in her 1st house profection year so it’s all about “ME!” – something an Aries loves.
Rihanna made the headlines by doing a fashion spread for the Interview Magazine. And, to be more precise, by posing in a nun-inspired outfit. The cover photo made some people outraged, while others were sighing in awe. The news broke pretty much on the eclipse (the morning after I believe).
Rihanna dabbles in these high-fashion, obscure themes probably because of the mixture of her Pisces Sun (religious themes? She surely went all-in for the Catholic-themed MET Gala a few year back) and her Aries stellium in the 1st. The ram likes to shock and be bold and sexual but considering she also has Moon and Venus – two feminine planets – in the sign, makes her bold and daring in her fashion choices as well.
Billie Eilish
The last person I want to talk about is… Billie Eilish. I know, I KNOW, you may think “but she’s a Pisces rising!”. Well Billie somewhat went through a different kind of rebrand and it’s that her birth certificate has just been obtained and according to the new info, she is, in fact an Aries rising.
The confusion might be there although if, like me, you see a massive Pisces influence in her, her “new” ascendant ruler is Mars… in Pisces! A corrected birth time is a big deal already, especially given the eclipse and Mercury retrograde – both helped “refresh” her astrological persona and “status” as an Aries ascendant. But that is not all, as on the day of the eclipse Billie announced a brand new album that she will debut on May 17th.
What’s great about this date is that Mars will already be in Aries, probably making her a lot more active. Also, that is only one day before Jupiter cazimi and Venus conjunct Uranus – a great time to release new things into the world. Interestingly, Venus and Uranus will conjoin just a couple of degrees away from Billie’s lot of fortune in Taurus. I truly love when astrology is doing its thing.