Madonna released her first single, "Everybody," in 1982 and her first album in 1983; Like a Virgin (1984) made her a star. Guinness World Records lists her as the best-selling female recording artist of all time, and she won a Golden Globe for Evita (1996).
The phone call to the hospital
Astro-Databank rates this time AA as a quoted birth record. The astrologer Tashi Grady says she was on the phone with Madonna's father and stepmother when the hospital looked up the records, and heard the nurse read out 7:05 a.m. Local tour material and a 2003 Bay City newspaper article give the same time and hospital, as do two biographies.
Madonna herself has said otherwise. In a 1995 interview and on British television in 1998 she named Aquarius as her rising sign. In a 2013 Reddit Q&A she said she did not know her rising sign because she did not know her birth time, and that her Moon is in Virgo.
The table shows why those statements clash. At 7:05 a.m. Virgo was rising. Aquarius rose that evening, around 7:05 p.m. The Moon, though, was in Virgo all day, so on the Moon every version agrees with what she said.
| Birth time | Where it came from | Rising sign | Moon |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7:05 a.m. | hospital records, read to Tashi Grady; rated AA | ♍︎ Virgo 8°15′ | Virgo |
| 7:05 p.m. | not on record; shown to place her Aquarius statement | ♒︎ Aquarius 12°55′ | Virgo |
| Point | Sign at birth | In that sign | Before and after |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rising sign | ♍︎ Virgo | 6:22 a.m. to 8:57 a.m. | Leo before, Libra after |
| Midheaven | ♊︎ Gemini | 6:50 a.m. to 8:57 a.m. | Taurus before, Cancer after |
| Moon | ♍︎ Virgo | all day | n/a |
Rising sign and Moon calculated by us for each time, Bay City, Eastern Standard Time. 7:05 p.m. is shown only to place her Aquarius statement; it is not a recorded time.
The Sun among four planets in the 12th house
Placidus puts the Sun, Mercury, Uranus and Pluto all in the 12th, the last house before the ascendant. The tradition calls it the house of what is hidden, of retreat, and of things that happen behind the scenes. Her Sun is at 23°07′ of Leo, a sign read as warm and theatrical, so a very public sign sits in a very private house.
The picture shifts with Whole Sign houses. There Leo is the 12th house, so the Sun, Venus and Uranus stay in it, while Mercury and Pluto, being in Virgo, move into the 1st with the Moon. Grady's own note on the chart says Madonna is drawn to meditation and the mystical, and connects that with the 12th house. That is her reading of the chart.
Our pages: Leo · 12th house · Uranus in Leo · Pluto in Virgo.
Virgo on the ascendant and the Moon
The ascendant is at 8°15′ Virgo and the Moon at 11°33′ of Virgo, both in the 1st house. Mercury, the ruler of Virgo, is in Virgo too, retrograde, along with Pluto. In the tradition Virgo is read as careful and hard-working, with a critical eye, and a Virgo Moon as feeling expressed through effort and order.
Venus had entered Leo on August 15, the day before she was born, and sits at 0°32′. Five planets out of ten sit in fixed signs, which astrologers associate with persistence.
Our pages: Moon in Virgo · Mercury in Virgo · Venus in Leo · rising sign calculator.
All major aspects between the planets in Madonna's chart
- Neptune sextile Pluto orb 0°35′
- Venus square Neptune orb 1°45′
- Mars square Uranus orb 2°41′
- Sun sextile Jupiter orb 3°17′
- Mercury sextile Neptune orb 3°22′
- Moon trine Mars orb 3°50′
- Mercury conjunction Pluto orb 3°56′
- Sun trine Saturn orb 3°58′
- Venus square Jupiter orb 4°08′
- Jupiter sextile Pluto orb 5°19′
- Moon conjunction Mercury orb 5°53′
- Jupiter conjunction Neptune orb 5°54′
- Saturn trine Uranus orb 6°27′
- Moon square Saturn orb 7°36′
- Sun square Mars orb 7°44′
- Sun conjunction Pluto orb 8°36′
- Moon conjunction Pluto orb 9°50′
Orbs: 8° for conjunction, opposition, square and trine, 6° for sextile, 2° more when the Sun or Moon is involved; Node, Lilith, Ascendant and Midheaven not counted. Same rules as our birth chart calculator.
Questions about Madonna's chart
What is Madonna's rising sign?
Virgo, at 8°15′ Virgo, from the 7:05 a.m. hospital time. Madonna has named Aquarius in interviews, but Aquarius rose that evening, not in the morning.
What is Madonna's moon sign?
Virgo, at 11°33′. The Moon was in Virgo all of August 16, 1958, which matches what she said in 2013.
What zodiac sign is Madonna?
Leo. Her Sun is at 23°07′ of Leo.
What time was Madonna born?
7:05 a.m. Eastern Standard Time at Mercy Hospital, Bay City, Michigan, graded AA as a quoted record.
What is Madonna's midheaven?
Gemini, at 3°45′ Gemini.
What is Madonna's Venus sign?
Leo, at 0°32′. Venus entered Leo on August 15.
Sources
- Astronomy Engine: the open-source ephemeris library behind our planet positions, dates and statistics
- Astro-Databank (Astrodienst): published birth charts we test the calculation against
- How we create our readings: our own calculation of sign dates, positions and the 1930 to 2025 statistics
More celebrity birth charts
Charts closest to this one, sharing the Sun sign, the rising sign or the Moon: Charli XCX · Dolly Parton · Bella Hadid · Kylie Jenner · Dua Lipa · Whitney Houston · Jennifer Lawrence · Demi Lovato · Ben Affleck · Emma Watson. All 143 charts with their sources and Rodden ratings: celebrity birth charts.
Astrology is a symbolic tradition, not a science. This page explains what the tradition says about the placements in a published chart; it makes no claims about Madonna's character, health or private life. Birth data: Astro-Databank (Astrodienst), checked October 20, 2026. Positions: our calculation with the astronomy-engine ephemeris; it matches the Sun, Moon and ascendant degrees Astro-Databank publishes for this chart to within one arc minute.