Ballerina Farm: The Real Story Behind The Hannah Neeleman Controversy

To millions of Ballerina Farm fans, Hannah Neeleman is mom goals. Beautiful, blonde, and with a body that doesn't hint to having birthed eight children, this former dancer turned beauty queen turned domestic goddess makes it all look so easy. Her Instagram feed is filled with photos and videos depicting an idyllic, rustic, life filled with cow milking, flower picking, and scratch baking, often with a baby snuggled against her chest and a few toddlers hanging off of her skirts. She, along with her strapping husband, have turned a dream of living a seemingly simple farm life into a reality, but after a profile piece on Ballerina Farm in the Sunday Times surfaced, some are beginning to question whether or not life on the farm is as picture perfect as it seems. Suddenly, Neeleman has found herself labeled by some as a "trad wife" and is in the center of the age-old controversy of whether or not a woman can, or even should, actually enjoy the role of homemaker in today's modern society where women are encouraged to shatter glass ceilings. 

To add fuel to the fire is Neeleman's husband, who some saw as controlling. Present throughout most of the interview, he often interrupted his wife or answered for her. As Needleman recounted her dancing days, the challenges of natural childbirth, and admitted to balancing all her roles without any full-time help with her children, readers began to question whether Needleman was living out her dream, or her husband's. 

Raising eight children may seem like a lot to some people, but to Hannah Neeleman it felt familiar. Born and raised outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, in the town of Springville, Neeleman was one of nine children born to her Mormon parents, Chad and Cherie Wright. A house full of siblings and a Mormon upbringing aren't the only parallels that can be drawn between Neeleman's childhood and the life she's created for her family at Ballerina Farm. Other similarities include education. The Wright children were home-schooled, and so are the Neeleman children whose studies are rooted in a Mormon-Christian faith-based curriculum. And, although the Wrights didn't own a large, working farm, they did run a local florist, which their next-to-youngest child said gave her a front row-seat to the risk and reward of entrepreneurship. "Looking back now, I realize I was raised in a small business training incubator. A front line view of how business works," Needleman wrote on the Ballerina Farm website. 

Neeleman seemingly has enjoyed a close relationship with her parents, both of whom have factored in heavily in her social media feeds. In one moving post, Neeleman's father came to watch her compete in the Mrs. American pageant, shortly before his death from cancer. "My Daddy made it to the pageant," she wrote. "It's been such a tender week in many ways and heaven has been close for all of us." 

Like many children, Neeleman dreamed of becoming a ballerina. She displayed a natural affinity for dance at a young age that was recognized by family and friends who encouraged her to apply to the prestigious Juilliard School. Neeleman was accepted to the New York City school's summer program at the age of 14, and by the age of 16, she was awarded a scholarship to the theatre ballet program at Brigham Young University. It seemed that the stage was set for the aspiring professional dancer to return to Juilliard for college, but there was the not-so-small matter of tuition. That's when the blonde ballerina turned to scholarship pageants as a means to help pave the way to her dancing dreams, returning to Juilliard and earning her undergrad degree from the famous institution. "Dance was my first love," she wrote on the Ballerina Farm website. "I wanted to be the best." 

It may have been her first love, but dance wasn't to be her only love. Daniel Neeleman came into her life during her senior year at Juilliard and before she knew it, the couple was dancing a pas de duex down the aisle. "I had left school for summer break single and dance-focused, when I came back to school in the fall I was married and thinking about a different future," she wrote on the website. One week before her graduation, Neeleman gave birth to the couple's first child, and everything changed.

When you consider how hard Hannah Neeleman worked to go to Juilliard and pursue her dreams, it seems strange how quickly she gave it up to settle down with a family. And while she has maintained that ballet was just one of many dreams, she admitted in the Sunday Times article that she wanted to wait to get married, but Daniel wouldn't hear of it. "Back then I thought we should date for a year [before marriage]," she 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.'" 

The couple first met at a college basketball game, where Daniel, the son of billionaire airline founder David Neeleman, said he was instantly smitten. He eventually used his connections to create a "chance" encounter, booking himself next to his future wife on her flight back to Juilliard. "I made a call," he admitted in the interview. The rest was a whirlwind of marriage, engagement, and babies, with the couple relocating from NYC to Brazil so Daniel could work for his father's security company. Although Neeleman tried to keep up dancing professionally, she eventually had to stop in favor of motherhood. In the interview, she spoke about the sacrifices she made in that first year. "Well, I gave up dance, which was hard. You give up a piece of yourself," she said. 

While living in Brazil, Hannah Neeleman and her husband discovered farm hotels, and they became fascinated with the idea of owning a farm and raising animals. Daniel, especially, seemed drawn to the idea. "This was a new side of him," Neeleman told Utah Farm Bureau. When they returned to the U.S., the couple bought a small farm in Utah, and the Ballerina Farm brand was born. Neeleman began documenting their farm life on social media, depicting what by all accounts appears to be a peaceful existence. Photos of her children happily playing outdoors flood her Instagram feed, along with photos of Neeleman, glowing and radiant as she milks a cow, or pulls a perfect pie out of the oven. It almost looks too good to be true and, based on the egg apron incident, maybe it is. 

While opening a birthday present from her husband in a Tik Tok video, Neeleman continually shares her hopes that he got her ticket to Greece. Doesn't seem like too much to ask considering she's raising eight kids and he's the heir to an airline. When she opens the package, however, she finds an egg apron so that she can gather the eggs from the Ballerina Farm chickens with ease. Although she tried to appear excited, her face gave away her disappointment. And when Daniel barked, "You're welcome," viewers were outraged, with one commenting, "Girl, you can do better."

While the Neelemans may not have known anything about farming when they ventured into their new way of life, Hannah Neeleman knew how to cultivate the fertile ground of social media to grow a successful brand. And make no mistake, Ballerina Farm, although depicted as a rural home on the range, is a thriving business that Neeleman knows how to milk for all its worth. The website's shop is home to everything from food to fresh flowers, homemade soap to sourdough starters, bowls to baked goods, and everything in between. The problem, according to detractors, is that Neeleman shows a "simple" life, that might not be quite so easy to accomplish without her husband's family money, or the monetizing and marketing of the brand. Shipping giant FedEx has proudly sponsored posts like this one that show the Neelemans shipping large quantities of boxes to their customers, and celebrities like Jennifer Garner and Hillary Duff are reportedly among the Ballerina Farm fans. 

Then there's the carefully curated social media aesthetic that features Neeleman and her model good looks doing things that the average women without her genetic gifts or inherent wealth could pull off while living on a farm taking care of eight children. The irony is that she is always working to promote the stay-at-home lifestyle associated with "trad wives," while being one heck of a savvy entrepreneur. And that's a dichotomy that detractors have a hard time swallowing.

When Hannah Neeleman won the title of Mrs. American in 2023, she went viral, not for how she looked (stunning, by the way), but for what she said when the judges asked for her thoughts on female empowerment. "After I hold that newborn baby in my arms," she said, "the feeling of motherhood and bringing them to the earth is the most empowering feeling I have ever felt,' she said per The New York Times. Fast forward to the Mrs. World competition and that's exactly what the woman who is the face of Ballerina Farm is doing: holding a newborn baby as she gets her makeup done, preparing to compete, swimsuit and all, just two weeks after giving birth to her eighth child. "A lot of us have kids, and I don't think there's any shame in showing I just had a baby," she said in the interview.

What began as a way to earn extra money for school turned into a way to "break things up," as Hannah Neeleman explained to The Sunday Times, as she indicated all the young children under her feet. But there are those who argue that her postpartum pageant sets yet another unrealistic expectation for women whose bodies don't bounce back as quickly after giving birth. "A pageant is not like I'm running a marathon," Neeleman told The New York Times. "I'm literally in a chair, getting pampered, mostly."

As a wife, mom of eight, and entrepreneur, Hannah Neeleman has a lot on her plate, but she makes it look effortless. That's why, when her husband Daniel revealed in The Sunday Times interview that she sometimes took to bed for a week out of pure exhaustion, people began to talk. Was the Ballerina Farm mom literally working herself to death? While she claims to love the life she leads, Neeleman admitted in the article (and out of earshot of her spouse) that this was not exactly where she saw her life heading. "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. "But I knew that when I started to have kids my life would start to look different." 

That feels like the understatement of the year. Neeleman's eight children are ever present. There is no nanny or regular childcare, and the children are not allowed to watch television or plug into iPads. It falls largely to Neeleman to balance cooking, shopping, and Ballerina Farm with mom life. A devout Mormon, Neeleman leaves the pregnancy planning up to God, but seems her husband has a say, too. When asked if they wanted more children, he replied, "Some day, yeah," while Neeleman seemed less enthusiastic, saying, "We'll see." 

To many, Hannah Neeleman is the epitome of a "trad wife," a subculture of women who define themselves as wives and mothers above all else. They relish the role of stereotypical homemaker, often to the tune of millions of social media followers who watch them cook from scratch, grow their own produce, and tend to a large number of children. Although that definition seems to fit Neeleman like her favorite pair of overalls, it's a term she said she doesn't feel accurately describes her life. "I don't necessarily identify with it," she told The Sunday Times, "because we are traditional in the sense that it's a man and a woman, we have children, but I do feel like we're paving a lot of paths that haven't been paved before." 

But are they, or is it all an act?  "Neeleman is the embodiment of a maternal ideal wholly impossible for most of us to attain," Sara Petersen penned in her newsletter In Pursuit of Clean Countertops, adding that she is the "Gwyneth of moms." And, like Gwyneth, her lifestyle is supported by a comfortable padding. Mamamia also points out that the now famous green stove featured so prominently in photos costs a whopping $30,000, although Neeleman reportedly purchased it second-hand, not to mention that 300 acres of Utah farmland complete with water rights, isn't cheap. Depsite the labels and controversy, Neeleman insists that she is the real deal. "This is just our normal life," she said.

If you believe everything you see on social media, Ballerina Farm's Hannah Neeleman is one happy, lucky woman who gets to spend her days in the arms of a handsome husband, surrounded by adorable kids, all set against a backdrop of some of the most picturesque views of nature you can imagine. But upon closer inspection, some say there is something much darker going on at the homestead. After The Sunday Times revealed a side of Neeleman and her husband that many had not seen before, followers became worried that the beautiful, blonde ballerina was trapped in a situation she never signed up for, with a husband who controls her every move. 

Throughout the interview, Neeleman was repeatedly interrupted or spoken for by her husband, who also seemed hesitant to leave his wife alone with the reporter. But it is in those rare moments alone that the former dancer is the most candid, expressing what sounds like a little bit of regret over giving up her dancing dreams, and admitting to having an epidural, with one of her eight births, which she described as "kinda great." Coincidentally, that was also the only birth where her husband wasn't present. When Daniel is around, Neeleman often defers to him. When asked if her husband is the head of the household, it was Daniel who answered that they were "co-CEOs" to which Neeleman simply said, "yeah, we are." Many are still not convinced. 

Once The Sunday Times article broke, the criticism was real and largely directed at Hannah Neeleman's husband Daniel. In response, the Ballerina Farm mom took to her socials, sharing this video where she defends her husband and their lifestyle. The video depicts a day in the life of the mom of eight, from brushing her teeth to working out to handling the daily farm chores. Her soft-spoken voice narrates the clip and assures the world that the information shared in the article was a misrepresentation and any conclusions drawn about her marriage and husband are false. "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," she says in the clip. "This couldn't be further from the truth. "Neeleman went on to say that the couple would love to have more children and that she is as in love with her husband today as she was when she married him. 

Just a day before, Neeleman shared another post that featured the happy couple enjoying a date night at their dairy, baby in tow. In a beautifully orchestrated display of affection, they kiss and canoodle in a field under a darkening sky, with cows softly mooing in the background. "It's the world we created and I couldn't love it more," she said.