Linda’s Cool Sculpt Litigation Is Hyper-Uranian

Linda Evangelista, the triple Taurus* former supermodel, is seeking $50 million in damages for an allegedly fuqed-up fat-freezing treatment and it’s totally Uranian. That is, it’s bold, on-zeitgeist, unexpected and it puts her ahead of the curve. She may even be the curve. Full disclosure: I think she’s fantastic. Remember the iconic Gianni Versace tribute show in 2018? It featured all the supermodels of the peak Versace era except Evangelista. Where was Linda?

Her birthtime is not public but I’ve always seen her as a Fire sign Ascendant: Aries, Leo or Sagittarius. And out of those, I’d wager Aries Rising. She’s been world-famous since 1988, a year that – like 2020 – featured Mars in Aries for an unusually long time. It was also when a hairdresser cut all her long hair off (she was purportedly upset at the time) on an aesthetic whim. That cut became known as ‘the Linda’ and it launched supermodel her. FYI the haircut was a Jupiter transit – it was conjunct her Sun-Venus.

She has Moon in Virgo, alongside Mars and the classic Gen X config of Uranus/Pluto. She’s a worker.  In 2011, with Saturn in Libra opposite her hypothetical ascendant in Aries, she went to court to try and win child support from the father of her son, who was born in 2006. Nobody expects to have fun in family court hearings but this one seemed particularly nasty.

She’d dated a Gemini tycoon now married to Salma Hayek – for four months and when she revealed her pregnancy, he’d ended the relationship, demanding she have a termination. He accused her of trying to bootstrap an undeserved alimony to fund her upkeep and so on. I remember seeing her trudging in and out of court in subdued bourgeois attire – floral frocks and pleated skirts. I figured she’d left her ‘real’ Linda wardrobe at home for tactical reasons, like Naomi Campbell selecting a demure knit ensemble when she was summoned to the War Crimes tribunal at the Hague.

The child support case was resolved with an undisclosed amount awarded, but given that Evangelista had publicly challenged a powerful guy who was enormously influential in luxury fashion circles, you have to assume her career suffered some blowback. She spent Saturn in Scorpio (2012 to 2015) working sporadically and when interviewed, stressed her interest in baking and macrame. Neptune in Pisces was well in swing and with it came the Influencers, a trend that the then social-media abhorring Linda disdained. The vibe calls of style mavens such as magazine editors and photographers were overruled by a new metric: followers. The more the better, obviously. Advertisers and publishers didn’t care who you were – they just wanted ‘social proof’ – the ‘likes.’

The problematic fat-freezing treatments were over 2015 and 2016: In May 2015, she turned 50 – a difficult age for even the most iconic of supermodels. That month, the then 19 year old Kendall Jenner received a record 2.5 million likes for a picture on Instagram. Best known for being a member of the first family of reality television, she’d become an Estee Lauder spokesmodel the year before.

It was Evangelista’s Chiron Return year, a lightning-like perspective shift to match the hormonal storm of menopause. Over 2016, papaazzi images of her looking larger than before popped up in the tabloids, complete with “she’s unrecognizable now” compare and contrast snark. She did some charity work and styled a fashion story starring a younger model depicting Linda’s ‘working class upbringing and early years.’ On Christmas day 2016, George Michael died unexpectedly. Evangelista and the musician had been friends since he’d cast her in his Freedom video and aside from the bereavement, it must also have been a poignantly symbolic postscript to the early 90s era that had launched her.

She sought the Cool Sculpt treament to improve her work prospects and perhaps make a ‘wow factor’ comeback but you can also see how she could have felt vulnerable. Saturn in Sagittarius was squaring her Virgo Moon + planets and Saturn. Like millions of others – mostly women – who shell out for body-sculpting, she was trying to fix something she perceived as suboptimal. Instead, the flesh rebelled and she got something called Paradoxical Adipose Hyperplasia – unshiftable lumps. It’s not merely cosmetic – they can apparently be a precursor to cancer and she claims she was not informed of this potential adverse reaction.

She says she is taking this action for other women, as well as herself and she’s aware that it opens her up to criticism. Because it will be an obvious publicity and financial nightmare for the company, they will presumably attempt to ‘change the conversation’ around this, as well as fighting it openly in court. It’s bound to invite misogynistic snark regarding her age (56), fertility status (menopausal) face, figure, relative fuqability then and now as assessed by incels/drongos, and single status. She’ll also cop more rational criticism about her relative privilege, possible superficiality or fat-shaming and comparison to people seeking damages for things they didn’t voluntarily enter into.

Whatever, it’s still brave – and daunting. So-called ‘Aesthetic Medicine’ is a billion dollar industry that does not appear to have much oversight, although all of the devices, machines and products are approved by the FDA. Media reports say Evangelista is suing Zeltiq Aesthetics, the original creator of Cool Sculpt, but they were bought by Allergan in 2017 and Allergan was bought by AbbieVie last year. Allergan are like Barbie-Corp – they make boob implants, injectables, Botox and more. Body sculpting clinics have become as ubitiquous as the local barber. Globally, this market was valued at a staggering $86USD billion in 2020 and it’s growing.

A person with – even now – the profile of a Linda Evangelista raising questions like ‘do these treatments deliver?’ or ‘can they be dangerous?’ is undesirable from the company’s point of view but then again, they could probably haggle the amount down a bit and pay it out of petty cash. Or, will they defend it in open court? If it’s the latter, her  well-known “we don’t get out of bed for less than $10,000” quip will come up over and over. It’s probably 100,000 in today’s values.

But guess what? She now has Uranus nearing her Taurus Sun and Eris-Persephone conjunct her Mercury in Aries. Getting to this point has probably been an arduous Saturn-Uranus square grind but there will be unexpected benefits. Thoughts?

*She has Sun, Venus + Vesta in Taurus.