EXCLUSIVE'The kindest thing people could do is stop tuning in.' As Ballerina Farm trad wife Hannah Neeleman's awkward interview goes viral, experts reveal very telling details that have sparked frenzied concern among her 18m fans
So intriguing is Hannah Neeleman’s life as a mother of eight – a mother who eschews help with childcare, cooks every meal from scratch with a baby on her hip, and who entered a beauty pageant just 12 days after the birth of her youngest – that more than 18million people follow her every move on social media.
Queen among the so-called ‘Trad Wives’ (trad is short for ‘traditional’), Hannah is part of a movement, with huge followings on TikTok and Instagram, which rejects modern gender roles in favour of women being at the beck and call of their families.
Sharing videos of herself at home on the family dairy farm in Utah, straining homemade yoghurt, rustling up lemon meringue pie and cookies made with freshly-laid eggs, and baking sourdough bread, she appears to be the perfect antidote to more usual depictions of modern motherhood, especially for a generation which watched their own frazzled mums stick fish fingers and chips in the oven after a long day in the office.
Queen among the so-called 'Trad Wives', Hannah Neeleman is part of a movement, with huge followings on TikTok and Instagram, which rejects modern gender roles in favour of women being at the beck and call of their families
However, among her army of fans, some are now raising concerns about the reality of Hannah’s life on a remote farm with her husband, creating their own posts highlighting what they believe to be glimpses of a less sunny side to the Trad Wife movement.
A magazine interview last month created a storm of comment and speculation, while a video of Hannah, 34, opening her birthday present from husband Daniel Neeleman, son of a billionaire airline founder, was viewed more than 40 million times.
In this post, as she opens the box, Hannah expresses her hope that it contains tickets to Greece, which she says she’s hinted to him she would like. Instead, what she finds is an ‘egg collecting apron’. Not the promise of a break far away from the incessant demands she faces at home, but a gift that will enable her to work even more efficiently in service to her family.
Followers say what is even harder to watch than Hannah’s ‘smile full of sadness’ and her attempts to hide her disappointment at the gift – with her children looking on – is Daniel telling her: ‘Now you can gather eggs.’
Hannah replies, one assumes – because who knows what really goes on behind other people’s closed doors – in an effort not to appear ungrateful: ‘It’s really cute’, before tying the apron around her waist and doing a half-hearted little jig. Apparently disappointed by her lack of gratitude, Daniel, 35, prompts: ‘You’re welcome.’ And Hannah, looking slightly flushed, replies: ‘Thanks honey’.
Judging by their comments on the video, some followers seem ready to stage an intervention.
One referred to the look in her eyes after he said “You’re welcome” before she was able to say “thank you”, like she… didn’t say it quick enough,’ says one. ‘My heart breaks for her’, adds another while a third posts: ‘That “You’re welcome” talks volumes.’
So what is happening on Ballerina Farm – the 320-acre estate nestled, as the Neelemans put it, ‘in the fertile mountain valley of Kamas, Utah’, and a nod to Hannah’s early ambitions as a dancer?
Some might argue that, rather than simply portraying an idyllic back-to-basics life on their TikTok, YouTube and Instagram posts, the signs of inequity in their relationship have been there all along.
After all, at the very heart of this throwback lifestyle is the assumption that men take charge while women know their place, which is very much in the home.
Hannah and husband Daniel, both Mormons with eight siblings apiece, were married within two months of their first date. She wanted to wait, to finish her training in ballet at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, but he insisted, in her words to an interviewer, they ‘get married now’.
Falling pregnant three months later, Hannah gave up her lifelong dream to dance professionally and dropped out of Juilliard.
Hannah backstage with baby Flora at Mrs World 2023, a pageant for married women
She gave birth, at home and without pain relief, to seven of their children, but opted for an epidural – an experience she describes as ‘amazing’ – on the one occasion her husband was working away and not there to witness it.
Hannah confided this to a journalist from The Sunday Times in the recent interview, whispering it as her husband left the room to take a phone call, a detail observers see as further evidence that all may not be quite as it seems at Ballerina Farm.
‘I find it of note that she whispers this detail when her partner’s out of the room, but also interesting that she’s willing to take that risk, knowing he’s likely to find out, as if she wants that information out there,’ says psychotherapist Kamalyn Kaur, who specialises in helping high-achieving women.
Indeed, it’s this interview which has poured fuel on the social media fire. Other telling indicators that life chez Neeleman may not quite replicate The Little House On The Prarie (which is, incidentally, the only show their children, who are homeschooled, following a Mormon-Christian syllabus, are allowed to watch) were peppered throughout the piece, written following a four-hour visit to the farm.
While Daniel has an ambition to fill the 15-seater family minibus with their offspring, Hannah, who will, of course, be the one who has to carry, birth and breastfeed another five babies, told the same journalist: ‘We are getting old and worn out,’ a fact borne out by her husband’s admission that his wife is sometimes so exhausted she has to stay in bed for a week.
When asked if her current life is what she always wanted, Hannah replied ‘No’, going on to speak of her excitement at arriving in New York from Salt Lake City, aged 17, to fulfil her dream of becoming a dancer.
Daniel, by contrast, admits to his life having turned out exactly as he’d hoped.
Hannah was 21 – Daniel, 23 –when they were introduced, at a college basketball game. While he was smitten with the ballerina, she spent six months turning down his requests for a date.
His continued efforts to win her over could, depending on your perspective, be considered romantic.
When Hannah mentioned to Daniel that she was flying back to New York from Salt Lake City, he took full advantage of the fact that his dad owned the airline, made a call and arranged to be seated next to her on the plane. That flight constituted their first date, he proposed after a month and they married four weeks later, in 2011.
Three months after the wedding, Hannah became the first Juilliard undergraduate ‘in modern history’ to become pregnant, a condition hardly suited to the demands of the training, and dropped out.
She appears to take a more pragmatic view of family life than her husband, admitting the first few years ‘were really hard, we sacrificed a lot’. She adds that they got through it because they had ‘this vision, this dream’ before, in the same interview, Daniel interrupts her, reminding his wife: ‘We still do.’
There are other times, too, when the couple’s singing from the same hymn sheet seems exceptionally neat. When asked about her lifestyle choices, for example, Hannah says: ‘I feel like we’re doing what God wants’ and when Daniel chimes in with ‘We’re on His errand a little bit’, she repeats his words, verbatim.
Psychologist Kamalyn Kaur suggests this may be evidence of Hannah being worn down and exhausted. ‘She has a baby and another seven children running around and, on top of that, she works on the farm and cooks everything herself from scratch. She probably doesn’t even have the energy to think for herself,’ she says.
‘You can see from some of her videos, in which she’s making homemade pasta, cheese and ice cream, that she’s a perfectionist – there’s nothing slapdash about any of it. In my view, the kindest thing people could do is stop tuning in to watch these videos, so she no longer feels compelled to keep up these unsustainable standards.’
However, some of Hannah’s followers seem to believe they’re performing an important role in keeping an eye on her.
They would therefore have seen her most recent video, posted on Instagram last week, in which she categorically denies the implications of the interview in the Sunday Times.
‘A couple of weeks ago we had a reporter come into our home to learn more about our family and business,’ she said. ‘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… For Daniel and I our priority in life is God and family… We are co-parents, co CEOs, co diaper-changers, kitchen cleaners and decision-makers… We have many dreams still to accomplish. We aren’t done having babies, we are excited for our new farm store to open and I can’t wait to see what the future holds.’
Hannah, dressed in a skin-tight white ballgown and spray tan, was joined at the pageant by husband Daniel and their eight children, who watched their mother make it through to the second round of the competition
If the voice is rather monotone, Hannah is only repeating what she has always said, that she and Daniel are simply fulfilling God’s will, not least in having so many children: Henry, 12; Charles, ten; George, nine; Frances, seven; Lois, five; Martha, three; Mabel, two; and Flora, seven months.
Although contraception is now permitted by the Mormon church, abortion is condemned, other than in cases of rape, incest and risk to life. More babies would make her even more remarkable, of course. Who knows whether she would attempt to appear as a contestant in a beauty pageant within a fortnight of having a ninth child, as she did after giving birth to her youngest, Flora, in her bedroom in January this year.
On her fifth day post-partum, she says: ‘I looked at Daniel and I said “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go. This is a lot”. I was bleeding and swollen and milk was coming in.’
However, go to the Mrs World pageant in Las Vegas she did – skin-tight white ballgown, spray tan and all.
Hannah took baby Flora, and Daniel followed on behind with their other seven children, who watched their mother make it through to the second round of the competition.
While they were no doubt proud to cheer their mother on, it appears that even when she is pushing herself to her physical limits, strutting her stuff on stage less than two weeks after giving birth, she is unable to forget her extensive parenting duties. Indeed, eight pregnancies in 12 years is a rare accomplishment nowadays.
At a time when birth rates are falling in almost every country (a decline put down to economic insecurity and high living costs – not a concern for the Neelemans, given Daniel’s estimated net worth of £4.6 million – as well as women having more flexibility to pursue careers than previous generations, it is unsurprising that the day-to-day life of a mother of eight has become a spectacle.
Other observers point out that Hannah, who always planned to marry a fellow Mormon – and bagged herself a multi-millionaire in the bargain – wants for nothing. Her Aga alone is said to be worth £23,000.
And, surely, they argue, if she wanted a trip to Greece, given that she and Daniel describe themselves as co-CEOs of their thriving business, which has 40 employees and sells everything from mountain-reared meat to raw milk, ready-to-bake pastries and cookies, sourdough starter kits, aprons and clogs, she could pay for it herself.
Some commentators have even suggested this week that there is nothing ‘trad’ about Hannah’s life, as Ballerina Farm is clearly a tightly run and profitable business.
‘Hannah is everything a stereotypical woman is expected to be: beautiful, fertile, capable and obedient,’ says psychotherapist Susie Masterson, whose specialisms include relationships.
‘Hannah is likely accruing a considerable income from her social media posts alone and her husband is ok with publicising details of their lives and marriage. We all make sacrifices and compromises to be in a relationship and only this couple knows how things really are behind closed doors.’
The reality is that whatever the true state of affairs on Ballerina Farm, the Neelemans have no doubt attracted millions more followers who will be watching them like hawks – surely any influencer’s goal in life – thanks to this latest controversy.
