Will Smith & the specter of judgment
Will Smith’s natal Moon sextiles a 5th-house Jupiter/Pluto conjunction, which ensures that the creative elements of his life are brought to a grand scale. He has one of the most recognizable faces in the world, and with four Grammys, four Oscars and one Tony, he is one of the most decorated stars in Hollywood. After being nominated for an Emmy in 2021 he became one of only ten Black actors nominated for all four of the major Hollywood awards categories (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) [1] – an impressive showing for someone whose nativity places such a strong emphasis on planets in the nocturnal hemisphere.
But Smith’s Moon is essentially debilitated in Scorpio, its sign of fall, and his Jupiter is debilitated in Virgo, its sign of detriment. For all that glitters around Smith, he is rarely free from the pressure of public scrutiny. Smith was born under the Sun sign of Libra, the exaltation of Saturn – an ever-present symbol of judgment, atonement, and accountability. Saturn rules Smith’s midheaven and is debilitated at every level: peregrine, retrograde, in its sign of fall, and placed on the cusp of the perilous 12th house (tribulations, self-undoing). This horoscope makes an almost certain promise of scandal and public discredit.
The precarious state of his Saturn is known to Smith. In 2018 he visited Haridwar, an important Hindu pilgrimage site in northern India, to visit a Vedic astrologer. The astrologer explained the threat of his natal Saturn. Afterwards, Smith performed rites at a nearby temple, hoping to mitigate the worst of its potential. [2] He developed a deep appreciation for Indian forms of spirituality, with a particular interest in the teachings of Sadhguru, one of India’s famed spiritual leaders. [3] Capricorn, which signifies the nation of India, falls upon Smith’s 9th house cusp.
With both luminaries in fall and the Sun conjunct the South Node, we would expect reputational damage through themes of spotlighted attention. But the affliction of the Sun and Moon also attests to difficulties at the most foundational part of life – the early childhood environment. The Sun rules the 4th house, so represents the father and home. The Times reported that “As a child, the Hollywood star worshipped his father, but lived in fear of his alcohol-fuelled rages” – as well as the physical abuse that typically ensued. [4]
Smith’s relationship with his father was complicated, and beyond the scope of this piece. But simply acknowledging the violence that Will and his mother experienced brings a deeper appreciation of Saturn’s placement on the 12th cusp, since (as the 10th-house ruler) Saturn is also the significator of his mother. The 12th house is the first to be mapped to human lifespan (ruling the first twelfth of life), the period when we are most impressionable physiologically, emotionally, and mentally. Saturn shows Smith’s early life to be filled with traumas, and since Mars disposits, we also see elements of violence and physical aggression. The fiery fixed star Regulus (nature: Jupiter/Mars) continues to precess towards Mars, at 2° Virgo, increasing its relevance in what might be likened to a very, very slow progressed transit. It will be instructive to observe how Smith rises to meet the Mars themes that will continue to develop around him in the coming years.
First comes loves, then comes marriage
Smith’s 7th-ruler Jupiter (20° Virgo) is joined to Pluto. One of the tokens of Virgo is prudence and Smith’s marriage to Jada Pinkett presents an interesting study in the working of that theme.
Pinkett’s natal Venus falls on Smith’s Sun (1° Libra & 3° Libra) – just the kind of synastry we hope to see between partners. But note how her Sun-Moon conjunction (illumination, exposure) falls on Smith’s Virgoan Jupiter, shining an intense light on a planet placed below the horizon in a sign that inclines to discretion. On several occasions, questions have been raised as to the very public nature of their relationship, especially given their otherwise private lives. In each public outburst, their natal placements in Virgo were struck by hard aspects.
Pinkett was born with an ascending Jupiter/Neptune conjunction, presenting similar themes to Smith’s Jupiter/Pluto conjunction, though her conjunction opposes her descending Saturn (6° Gemini). Her Saturn, in turn, sits right on Smith’s ascendant (7° Gemini); one might say this pair both married into the symbol of Saturn.
The two were wed on New Year’s Eve, 1997, during Smith’s Saturn return. The wedding chart features a Capricorn Sun in a tight, mutually received square to Saturn in Aries. Pluto transited over Pinkett’s natal Jupiter/Neptune conjunction and opposed her Saturn as it simultaneously transited Smith’s descendant. The exact degree of the wedding Moon is unknown, but we know that on the wedding day it was in Aquarius and passed over Neptune, Venus, Uranus, and Mars, all in late Capricorn/early Aquarius. Saturn disposited seven of the ten planets.
On Saturn’s first transiting square to its placement in the wedding chart, the marriage showed signs of fracture. Questions rose about the nature of their relationship, with rumours that the two were seeking connections outside the confines of marriage. In 2005, Will explained that he and Jada “don’t avoid what’s natural” and they intentionally removed the phrase “forsaking all others” from their wedding vows. His insistence that this was always part of the plan didn’t assuage speculation that they were moving towards separation. In 2013, Jada declared that Will was “his own man,” [5] and that she didn’t play the role of “Will’s watcher.” [6] By the end of 2015, the Smiths would separate. The public expected the two to divorce.
But the divorce never came. Will and Jada stayed together and publicly denied rumours of a swingers’ arrangement, or that the two had navigated some type of open marriage. [7]
In 2018, Jada developed her show: Red Table Talk, featuring her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and daughter, Willow – three generations of women offering social commentary on hot issues. The women sit around a red table holding discussions with strong themes related to accountability, agency, advocacy, and self-healing. As Jada’s brand rose, media focus shifted from the Smith separation to the thoughtful style of Red Table Talk and their daughter’s commercial success in the music industry. Rumours subsided.
State of emergency
In June 2020, R&B artist August Alsina made the surprising admission that Jada had recently ended a fouryear relationship with him. The two met in 2015, when Will and Jada’s child, Jaden, introduced his mother to his friend. [8] Alsina was 23, Jada 43. The explanation came during Alsina’s interview for The Breakfast Club radio show and was published on his YouTube channel as part of a promotion for his third album.
In this open and earnest interview, Alsina shares his experience of managing a severe auto-immune disease and talks about the supportive role Jada played in helping him cope with his disability and the death of his mother. The video of the interview, which has had almost 4 million views to date, was published from New York at 6:30 pm, as 3° Libra culminated on the midheaven. [9]
That degree is significant in how it ties our three characters together – Will’s Sun at 3° Libra, Jada’s Venus at 1° Libra, and Alsina’s Venus at 3° Libra. In the interview commencement chart, Venus (6° Gemini) transits Will’s ascendant and Jada’s 7th house stationary Saturn. Alsina’s Moon falls in early Sagittarius and is also connected – it lies close to the Smith’s wedding Pluto, opposing Jada’s Saturn and Will’s ascendant.
The Sun/Mercury conjunction of the interview provokes the wedding chart’s Sun/Saturn square. Just days before the interview aired Saturn stationed over the wedding Venus. The Saturn/Venus theme is completely resonant between these three individuals.
In his interview, Alsina claimed he had asked Will’s permission to date Jada, and this had been given. Jada’s PR team initially denied this, but old rumours came back to the foreground and a fuller response was warranted. A fortnight later, Jada came onto her own talk show to clear the air.
Jada’s show was now in its third season. Coming to the Red Table had become synonymous with coming clean, holding oneself to account, and embracing uncomfortable realities in the name of finding a sincere path forward. She named the episode, ‘Jada Brings Herself to the Table’ and was joined only by her husband, Will – a first for the show. [10]
Jada admitted that she had ended up in an “entanglement” with Alsina (the word “entanglement” became a viral phenomenon for months, and Alsina later released a track with that title). Newly separated from Will, she said she had felt wounded and gravitated to someone new, someone young, someone who could use her help. It comforted her to care for someone else’s hurt.
Recalling the Saturn/Venus theme – it’s unclear here who is Saturn and who is Venus. Is Jada Saturn, the mature, established adult, and Alsina Venus, a younger image of beauty evoking a tender, caring response? Or is Alsina Saturn, suffering from severe physical hardship, rendering Jada as Venus, a restorative salve mixed with romantic desire? (In trying to describe the possible angles to explore their relationship, I begin to understand what Jada means when she says she and August “became entangled.”)
Jada’s confessional episode of the Red Table Talk aired with 5° Libra rising on the ascendant, thus connecting Will’s Sun (3° Libra) and South Node (9° Libra), Jada’s Venus (1° Libra), Alsina’s Venus (3° Libra), and the midheaven at the time Alsina’s interview was released (3° Libra).
Jupiter factors in here, too: Alsina’s nativity is essentially a Jupiter return for Will, so the Jupiter for both these men stands between Jada’s natal luminaries. The RTT episode’s Moon (24° Pisces, conjunct Neptune) opposed Will and Alsina’s Jupiter and Jada’s luminaries – all in Virgo. The whole thing seemed far too public and exposed, and questions about discretion and judgment hit centre stage.
The RTT episode ended with Will and Jada reciting their marriage mantra: Bad marriage for life, meant to mean “through thick and thin” but interpreted by the public as a willingness to trade happiness for stability. Over the coming week, as Mars closed into the wedding Saturn (13° Aries) social commentators questioned whether we knew too much about these two, and might all prefer to know a lot less.
In September 2021, as Venus transited Will’s natal Moon, and the Sun and Mars conjoined in early Libra (4° & 8°, respectively), Will spoke of his marriage for a GQ cover profile. [11] Interviewer Lesley Lowery narrated how he revealed his own internal sense of self-judgment that he had inherited from his early upbringing –
During his first meeting with Michaela Boehm, an intimacy coach, Smith confessed that, if he could have anything in the world, he’d want a harem of girlfriends. “Who?” Boehm demanded, insisting he name specific women he’d invite to his harem. Misty Copeland, Smith replied. And Halle Berry too. For the rest of the session, the two of them researched specific women who could round out his aspirational harem. The plan was to then begin contacting the women.
“I don’t know where I saw it or some shit as a teenager, but the idea of travelling with 20 women that I loved and took care of and all of that, it seemed like a really great idea,” Smith explained to me with a laugh. “And then, after we played it out a little bit, I was like, ‘That would be horrific. That would be horrific.’ I was like, ‘Can you imagine how miserable?’ What she was doing was essentially cleaning out my mind, letting it know it was okay to be me and be who I was. It was okay to think Halle is fine. It doesn’t make me a bad person that I’m married and I think Halle is beautiful. Whereas in my mind, in my Christian upbringing, even my thoughts were sins. That was really the process that Michaela worked me through to let me realize that my thoughts were not sins, and even acting on an impure thought didn’t make me a piece of shit.”
Highs & lows at the Oscars
In March this year, comedian Chris Rock hosted the Oscars. The ceremony opened with Libra on the ascendant, the Sun and Mercury descending in the early degrees of Aries, and the Moon conjunct Mars. In the first hour of the broadcast, Rock teased Jada about her alopecia, saying that she could be cast as the next ‘G.I. Jane’. Smith took a moment to catch the joke. As it registered that Rock had joked about his wife’s illness, Smith walked to the stage and slapped Rock in the face. Then he returned to his seat. Rock attempted to break the tension, but the heat intensified when Smith then yelled at the top of his voice, shaking with anger: “Keep my wife’s name out your **** mouth!”
This was a big moment of career elevation for Will, which turned into a professional shit-storm. The Moon/Mars conjunction of the evening was within 1° of his midheaven, triggering his natal Saturn and all that was left unresolved in its shadows. Jupiter was at 20° Pisces, opposing his natal Jupiter (and Jada’s luminaries). He would go on to accept an award that night for best actor, and then resign from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He has been banned from attending Academy functions until 2032.
Big as the story is, those interpreting the moment in isolation miss the full story, which began back in 2016 when Jada boycotted the Oscars due to their lack of racial diversity amongst nominees. [12] Will Smith joined his wife and stayed home from the ceremony. Chris Rock, hosting then as he was in 2022, opened his show with a swipe: “Jada got mad, said she’s not coming. Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited!”. [13]
That evening the Moon and Mars were conjoined, [14] just as they were in the 2022 Oscars commencement chart, but this time over Smith’s Moon (20° Scorpio) so we can imagine the anger that remark seeded in Smith’s emotions at that time. Jupiter was also retrograde at 19° Virgo, hitting Will and Jada’s familiar Virgo placements. Jupiter would swing back to 20° Pisces the night Smith confronted Rock earlier this year.
The synastry is stark between Chris Rock and Will Smith. Rock’s ascendant (20° Aries) is joined to Smith’s natal Saturn (24° Aries) whilst his Sun (19° Aquarius) is joined to Smith’s Saturn-ruled midheaven (14° Aquarius). The Sun and Saturn are naturally incompatible, each vying in different ways for the most important or senior position. Their alignments here play out as professional tensions, and that it should lead to joint public humiliation is intimated by the shared theme both Rock and Smith have of the midheaven being ruled by an undignified Saturn, which is situated on the 12th house cusp in both nativities.
Oh, and the lunation preceding the 2022 Oscars was a Full Moon at 27° Virgo, exactly on Chris Rock’s natal Mars and the midpoint of Smith’s natal Pluto/Uranus conjunction.
A forward look
I’m not sure what I would say to Smith if he were my client. The patterns are clear enough, but there are entire worlds that exist within a pattern; astrology isn’t always enough to fill in the gaps. But it might help to call attention to the repeated expressions of the two superiors, Saturn and Jupiter, and the sky’s chief luminary, the Sun. The astrology shows these three debilitated titans fighting within him – the immense pressure to rise above debilitating circumstances (Saturn), a liberal spirit in the face of difficulty (Jupiter), and commanding the role celebrity plays in his relationships (the Sun).
We could trace the astrology of the coming months and years, to find times of increased vulnerability. He should be alerted that his solar return in 2027 presents an opportunity to respond to similar provocations with defter handling. This puts his natal Mars on the ascendant, with Venus and Saturn moving into opposition from Libra and Aries respectively. Uranus (9° Gemini) will also be transiting Will’s ascendant (8° Gemini) and Jada’s Saturn (7° Gemini). The Moon (12° Leo) will be placed upon his natal I.C. (14° Leo) as it squares the solar return Mars (16° Scorpio), which is itself in conjunction with his natal Moon (21° Scorpio).
The astrology on Halloween 2027 looks especially interesting – Saturn and Jupiter will both return to their natal position in Smith’s nativity (2026-2027 is Will’s second Saturn return, and the first Saturn return for his marriage to Jada). The Moon will also be transiting Will’s descendant while opposing Jada’s Saturn, and Venus makes an ingress into Sagittarius and conjunction with Jada’s ascendant.
Perhaps there is someone else on the horizon for Jada, or for Will. Is Will prepared to meet that moment?
Notes & sources
[1] The nine other Black EGOT nominees are: Diahann Carroll, Don Cheadle, Cynthia Erivo, Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, Quincy Jones, Leslie Odom Jr., Sidney Poitier, and Denzel Washington.
[2] Kumar, Y., ‘In Haridwar, Will Smith performed ‘Rudra Abhishek’ to nullify ill-effects of Saturn’, 11 Oct 2018, Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/in-haridwar-will-smith-performed-rudra-abhishek-tonullify-ill-effects-of-saturn/articleshow/66169714.cms.
[4] Smith’s memoir on the abuse he and his family experienced in his childhood home can be read at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/will-smith-memoir-father-violence-vdw53k6bh.
[5] Video: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jada-pinkett-will-smith-open-relationship-rumor_n_3007718.
[6] Jada Pinkett-Smith on the Howard Stern Show: https://www.howardstern.com/show/2015/6/3/wednesdays-show/.
[7] Jada Pinkett-Smith on ‘Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen’: https://youtu.be/arASXH4CagI.
[8] Lewittes, Elisa. ‘Jada Pinkett Smith Met August Alsina Through Jaden Smith: How Their “Entanglement” Happened’, 11 July 2020, SheKnows: https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/2286073/jada-pinkett-smith-augustalsina-jaden-smith/.
[9] Interview hosted YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q91Z1gW_iHw. Time source: https://mattw.io/youtube-metadata/.
[10] Available to stream/Facebook Watch: https://www.facebook.com/redtabletalk/videos/718425758995043/.
[11] Will Smith for GQ: https://www.gq.com/story/will-smith-november-cover-profile.
[13] https://www.today.com/popculture/awards/chris-rock-jada-pinkett-smith-2016-oscars-joke-rcna21797.
[14] Commencement: 28 February 2016, 8:30pm PST. Hollywood, CA.
