Billie Eilish: The Gen Z megastar
by Tim Burness
With 87 million followers on Instagram alone, the singer-songwriter phenomenon is riding high once again with a new album and the latest Bond film about to be released – and she’s still not 20. We take a closer look at her nativity and how certain major transits this year are impacting on her development.
Billie Eilish in January 2020
Source: Justin Higuchi, CC BY 2.0
With her second album Happier Than Ever just released and the No Time To Die James Bond theme tune finally reaching cinemas at the end of September 2021, American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish continues her astonishing rise to transcendent global mega-stardom. She is still only 19 years old.
Full name Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell, she was born at 11:30 am on 18 December 2001, in Los Angeles, California (RR: A. See chart below). With Pisces rising, a cluster of planets sits right at the top of her chart near a Sagittarius Midheaven – Sun, Venus and Pluto, all in Sagittarius. These significators alone mark her out as being born with a huge potential for making a positive impact on the world.
Eilish began her rise to fame with the now legendary release of Ocean Eyes in November 2015. As many astrologers observed, this coincided with an almost exact transiting Neptune conjunction to Billie’s Mars in Pisces. Not only that but in the 12th house, too. It doesn’t get more Neptunian – tapping into magical and illusory dreams of connection, simultaneously launching Eilish into the collective consciousness. She released her first album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? in 2019 as Neptune formed a transiting conjunction to her Ascendant. Soon after, she became the youngest person and first female to win the four main Grammy awards – Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist of the Year.
Depending on how accurate the time of birth is, Venus in Sagittarius falls exactly on Eilish’s Midheaven. She makes her popular mark on the world with an open-minded and exploratory approach to artistic self-expression, love and relationships. David Bowie had a similar position of Venus in his natal chart. A sextile from Uranus in Aquarius to Venus adds an experimental and extra freedom-loving approach.
With so much Sagittarius in her chart and with Pisces rising, the position of chart and Midheaven ruler Jupiter becomes crucial. With its exalted position in Cancer, the importance of Eilish’s family is huge in her story. Billie co-writes her songs with brother Finneas O’Connell, and they have had big support from their parents while recording songs at home. A quick look at Finneas’ chart (born 30 July 1997) inevitably shows strong synastry connections with Billie, as is common between siblings, of course. Billie’s Venus-MC conjunction career goals are perfectly supported by her brother’s hardworking Mars-Saturn opposition – a trine from Saturn in Aries and a sextile from Mars in Libra.
All change with Moon in Aquarius
Up until March this year, Billie Eilish has had a very definite style and image, almost an ‘anti-image’ for a young female pop star. Reflecting her struggles with depression and self-worth, a gothy downtempo but colourful bagginess in her clothes has corresponded nicely with much of her music. Then suddenly in March, she became a blonde bombshell and soon after a photoshoot in Vogue portrayed her in corset and stockings. As astrologer Christina Rodenbeck observed in her column in this magazine (Jul-Aug 2021), this was closer to Nineties Madonna than the Billie Eilish we were used to.
There are several major transits for Billie in 2021, but the Saturn-Uranus square transiting her 11th-house Moon (and to some extent Neptune) in Aquarius may well be the main astrological explanation for her radical transformation. The first conjunction of Saturn to her 11th-house Moon in Aquarius was approaching in March, when the posting of her new hairstyle to her Instagram followers – over 87 million at the time of writing this article – received a million likes in six minutes. In June, transiting Uranus squared her Moon for the first time. Natal Moon in Aquarius is known for reacting unpredictably and individualistically – add a transiting square from Uranus and anything could happen! The Aquarian truth-seeking, emotional freedom and social conscience have all been clearly on display in interviews building up to the release of the new album.
On 30 July 2021, the album Happier Than Ever was “dropped” (as they like to say now – we old-timers prefer “released”, like a tiger or maybe a hamster from a cage. Presumably the album is picked up again after being dropped…) and all the early signs were that it’s another massive success.
Building on themes she has explored in earlier material, new songs such as the single Your Power get right to the point. With natal Pluto both conjunct Venus and square her Ascendant/Descendant axis, the darkness is never far away for Billie Eilish.
I wanted to say that it doesn’t matter who you are, what your life is, your situation, who you surround yourself with, how strong you are, how smart you are. You can always be taken advantage of. That’s a big problem in the world of domestic abuse or statutory rape – girls that were very confident and strong-willed in situations where they’re like ‘Oh my God, I’m the victim here?’. And it’s so embarrassing and humiliating and demoralising to be in that position of thinking you know so much and then you realise, I’m being abused right now.(1)
Been there, done that?
An interesting combination in the chart of someone so famous at an early age, is the 10th-house Sun forming a close conjunction to the Moon's South Node. Despite the positive and optimistic essence of a Sagittarius Sun, Eilish is likely to feel a sense of “been there, done that”, perhaps dragging her down. Her innate visionary higher knowledge comes easily due to lessons learnt from previous lifetimes but looking to the North Node, the emphasis in this lifetime is on developing less lofty Gemini communication skills. Saturn is also in Gemini, with a mutual reception to Mercury in Capricorn, further indicating serious karmic responsibilities in connection with communicating in the world.
By the time that you are reading this article, Happier Than Ever will have been streamed a zillion times by Billie Eilish fans who include rock aristocracy such as Elton John and Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters. According to Rolling Stone,
The songs bare different kinds of catharsis, teetering between sexy, electronic beats and warm folkiness, reminiscent of her earliest music. Each song is delicate, sensuous, and balancing naked vulnerability with a bit of self-protective confidence posturing.(2)
Eilish was born just over a year away from the climate crisis protester Greta Thunberg – Eilish is a fan. They are part of the Uranus and Neptune in Aquarius with Pluto in Sagittarius generation, the so-called Generation Z, a powerfully idealistic and future-orientated group. It may be a cliche, but with her Sun in Sagittarius and Moon in Aquarius, Billie Eilish could truly be said to be a spokesperson of her generation.
I think change is one of the best gifts in the world
she said recently. With an unpredictable Aquarian side and the predominance of mutable signs in her natal chart, there will no doubt be many more changes to come.
Endnotes:
1. Vogue, June 2021, p.154.
“Billie Eilish and the Pursuit of Happiness”, Rolling Stone (online), 17 June 2021.
Published by: The Astrological Journal, Sep/Oct 2021
Author:
Tim Burness has run a busy astrological consultation and teaching practice at several points over the last thirty years, working with people from all walks of life. He has contributed many articles to Journal magazine and a music column to IAM Infinity Astrological Magazine. Tim is interested in raising the profile of accessible and intelligent astrology as a tool for awareness and healing. He lives in West Sussex and is also a musician and care worker. Websites: timburnessastrologer.co.uk and timburness.com.
© Tim Burness, 2021
