A Saturn—Uranus Showdown
Starring Johnny Depp
In my last article I wrote about the demise of the marriage of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. But this marital disaster was preceded by another famous split: the breakup of Johnny Depp and his long time companion, Vanessa Paradis. In Cruise’s horoscope (charted for noon) I focused on the role that Jupiter and Neptune played in his divorce. With Depp, the culprits seem to be Saturn and Uranus.
Depp has Mars in Virgo with Venus in Taurus. (Click here to see Depp's chart.) In our Mars/Venus Playbook we call this combination The Basically Beautiful Lover. It provides for an earthy, fulsome erotic nature. It is a very sexy combination but also a practical one. Physical pleasure is paramount but lust is always tempered by a realistic concern for what it may cost, both materially and emotionally.
In Depp’s case, Saturn and Uranus add some major amendments to this baseline description. Depp has Saturn square his Venus. This aspect makes him a more cautious lover. He is slow to give himself totally to a relationship and even when he does, he always seems to hold something back. On the other hand, he desires stability in his relationships and aspires to perfect fidelity.
Meanwhile, Mars in Depp’s horoscope is conjunct Uranus and, where Saturn seeks safety and stability, Uranus revels in adventure and novelty. Since his Mars in Virgo already has a tendency to value expediency over principles, Depp’s aspirations of fidelity are in for some rough weather with this aspect. The conjunction of Uranus to Mars makes him more impulsive than the typical Mars in Virgo Lover and much more prone to get into trouble.
To make matters even more interesting, Depp’s Saturn is placed in his 7th House of marriage. He is drawn to partners who also value stability but who are also judgmental and tough minded. This is problematic because his Mars to Uranus conjunction is in his 1st House, meaning that it is part of the face he presents to the world. The world may love this daring and roguish persona, but whoever is representing his Saturn back at the house is not going to be pleased.
The estrangement between Depp and Paradis seems to have been building for at least a couple of years and, at this point, the reasons behind it are unknown. Was it Saturn and his reluctance to fully surrender himself emotionally that caused the problems? Or was it Uranus and his inability to maintain his aspirations of fidelity? Most likely, of course, it was a combination of the two. In any case, Depp will have to work to master these aspects or face another possible manifestation of Saturn in the 7th House, a long and unhappy bachelorhood.
