Hannah Neeleman has responded to the backlash she and her family have seen following an article that went viral. If the name “Hannah Neeleman” doesn’t ring any bells for you, then maybe Ballerina Farm, the handles that she posts under on social media, does.
Neeleman was the subject of a recent article in The Sunday Times, which labelled her the ‘Queen of the Trad Wives’, and which went viral last week after a journalist visited Neeleman and her family on their farm in Utah, US.
To her 9.1 million Instagram followers and her 7.6 million TikTok fans, Neeleman appeared to be the picture perfect housewife, or traditional wife, as the trend goes. She spends her days baking cookies, making sourdough bread with freshly laid hen eggs, and tending to her eight children. The 34-year-old is also married to Daniel Neeleman, 35, the heir to the US airline JetBlue fortune.
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Neeleman's family, particularly her husband, received some backlash following the article - but the influencer has now responded to this scrutiny.
“A couple of weeks ago, we had a reporter come into our home to learn more about our family and business,” Neeleman said in a recent video posted to TikTok and Instagram.
"We thought the interview went really well, very similar to the dozens of interviews we had done in recent memory. We were taken back, however, when we saw the printed article, which shocked us and shocked the world by being an attack on our family and my marriage, portraying me as oppressed with my husband being the culprit.
“This couldn’t be further from the truth,” she continued. “Nothing we said in the interview implied this conclusion, which leads me to believe the angle taken was predetermined.”
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Neeleman explained that she and her husband have built their business together ‘from scratch’, brought eight children into the world, and prioritised their marriage.
“We are co-parents, co-CEOs, co-diaper changers, kitchen cleaners and decision makers. We are one, and I love him more today than I did 13 years ago,” she added, stating that they still have “many dreams to accomplish”.
“For now, I’m doing what I love most: being a mother, wife, a businesswoman, a farmer, a lover of Jesus, and making meals from scratch,” she finished the video.
If you haven't yet read the interview or know anything about the controversy surrounding it, read on for everything you need to know.
Why has an interview with Ballerina Farm gone viral?
During the interview with The Times, the interviewer noted that Daniel hardly left Neeleman’s side despite Neeleman being the subject of the interview, and some things were said that have caught readers' attention.
“My goal was New York City. I left home at 17 and I was so excited to get there, I just loved that energy. And I was going to be a ballerina. I was a good ballerina,” she said. Neeleman had been training as a ballerina at Juilliard school in New York City when she met Daniel. “But I knew that when I started to have kids my life would start to look different.”
“I gave up dance, which was hard. You give up a piece of yourself. And Daniel gave up his career ambitions,” Neeleman says of the sacrifices the pair made to start a family.
The writer, Megan Agnew, then notes: “I look out at the vastness and don’t totally agree. Daniel wanted to live in the great western wilds, so they did; he wanted to farm, so they do; he likes date nights once a week, so they go (they have a babysitter on those evenings); he didn’t want nannies in the house, so there aren’t any. The only space earmarked to be Neeleman’s own — a small barn she wanted to convert into a ballet studio — ended up becoming the kids’ schoolroom.”
This quote in particular has hit a nerve with some fans, and now Neeleman’s social media is littered with comments such as: “I hope you get to dance again. More than that, I hope no one was angry at you for admitting to an epidural.” In the piece Neeleman said the only time she received medication during childbirth was the one where Daniel wasn’t present.
“If you are working so hard for your family to the point of bedridden exhaustion for a WEEK there is a huge problem,” another commenter said, referring to the part of the article where it was mentioned that sometimes Neeleman gets so exhausted she has to spend a week in bed.
Or a ‘Til Death do us Part-y’, if you will.
What is Hannah Neeleman’s background?
Neeleman was born in a town near Salt Lake City in Utah, US to Mormon parents, and is one of nine children. Daniel is also from a Mormon family and is also one of nine, but he grew up in Connecticut.
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Neeleman was home schooled, but loved ballet. She attended summer school at Juilliard – one of America’s most prestigious dance schools – when she was 14, and returned to complete a degree when she was 17, paying for it by competing in beauty pageants that offered scholarships.
When she got pregnant in her early 20s, Neeleman became the ‘first Juilliard undergraduate to get pregnant in modern history’.
She is now the mother to eight children, her youngest, daughter Flora, was born in January 2024. She, Daniel, and the children live on Ballerina Farm in Utah.
Neeleman continues to do beauty pageants, and was crowned Mrs America in August 2023, and competed in Mrs World just 12 days after giving birth.
How did Hannah and Daniel Neeleman meet?
In The Times article, Daniel explains that the pair were introduced by a mutual friend at a university basketball game.
“I saw her and I was ready to go,” he explained. “Sign me up. I was thinking, ‘Let’s get married.’ But she wouldn’t go on a date with me for six months.”
After Neeleman mentioned to Daniel she had a flight from Salt Lake City to New York coming up, he realised it was with his father’s airline and pulled some strings to be sitting next to her.
“Back then I thought we should date for a year [before marriage],” Neeleman said. “So I could finish school and whatever. And Daniel was, like, ‘It’s not going to work, we’ve got to get married now.’”
After a month of dating they were engaged, two months later they were married, and three months after they Neeleman was pregnant.
Let's talk #LobotomyCore.
What is Ballerina Farm?
Ballerina Farm is the name of the farm in Utah where Hannah and Daniel Neeleman live with their eight children.
It is also the name used as Neeleman’s social media handles, and the brand name used to promote products from the farm such as aprons, sourdough kits, aprons, flour, and candles.
Its tag line reads: “Mountain raised meats and home goods from our farm to your door”.
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What is a Trad Wife?
Trad wife is short for traditional wife, or a traditional housewife. It’s the new wave name for a woman who stays at home with her children, cooks all the family’s meals from scratch, and looks picture-perfect while doing so.
Nara Smith, 22, also from Utah is another popular Trad Wife with over 4 million followers on Instagram who often makes ‘snacks’ for her children that include bread made from scratch.
However, Neeleman said she doesn’t identify with this label.
And cosmetic chemists want them all to stop: “You can make your own car, too, but sometimes there are things you just shouldn’t do."
