Ballerina Farm Controversy refers to a viral debate and online controversy revolving around a prominent figure of TikTok’s Trad Wife trend, Ballerina Farm (whose real name is Hannah Neeleman) after a five-page article about her was released by The Sunday Times in late July 2024. The Times article details Neeleman as a victim of misogynistic circumstances and not as a representative of "trad wives" content creators fans assumed. The article sparked theories and commotion on Twitter / X, Reddit and TikTok, as people shared some of Neeleman's quotes about her aspirations to become a ballerina before moving with her husband Daniel Neeleman to a farm in the Utah mountains where she raises eight children.
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00:00Okay, that's my birthday present from Daniel, holding their tickets to Greece.
00:05Oh, my AK friend!
00:08Is she living an idyllic farm life as a trad wife, or is she being manipulated by her husband?
00:13The internet has seen a lot of discussion recently about trad wives,
00:16but one hugely popular trad wife influencer just became the subject of controversy
00:20after an interview indicated that her trad wife lifestyle might not be as perfect as it seems.
00:24This trad wife drama that I just happened upon, baby, I am invested.
00:29Ballerina Farm is a TikTok account with over 9 million followers. It's run by Hannah Neelman,
00:34who shares eight children with her husband Daniel Neelman. The two run a farm together
00:38in rural Utah. Most of her TikTok content shows her cooking with ingredients from their farm
00:42and raising her eight children, depicting a beautiful traditional Mormon lifestyle
00:45that seems to have earned the admiration of millions.
00:48When we started to farm, I was swept up in the beauty of learning to make food from scratch.
00:53On July 21st, 2024, journalist Megan Agnew published an article for the Sunday Times
00:58that featured an interview with Neelman intended to discuss her life and internet fame.
01:02In April, I went to interview Hannah Neelman, otherwise known as Ballerina Farm.
01:08The article opens with Agnew describing how Neelman gave birth to her eighth child without
01:12any pain relief in their family home and only 12 days later competed in the Mrs.
01:16World pageant in Las Vegas. Agnew describes visiting the couple on their Utah farm,
01:20hoping to get one-on-one time with Hannah. But throughout her time on the farm,
01:23Daniel was ever-present and often interrupting or correcting Hannah when Agnew would ask her
01:27questions. The description of the environment made it seem like perhaps Hannah was not able
01:31to speak freely. When Agnew asks if this was Hannah's dream, Hannah responds that it wasn't.
01:46She had dreamed of being a ballerina and even studied dance at Juilliard,
01:50saying she was a very good ballerina. However, when the pair started having children,
02:01she says they both made sacrifices. For her, it was giving up her dancing career. But Agnew mentions
02:06it didn't exactly seem like her husband had sacrificed his dreams in the same way,
02:10as the pair appeared to be living the life he had desired for them. Daniel Neelman is the son of Jet
02:14Blue founder David Neelman and secured his first date with Hannah by pulling strings at Jet Blue
02:18to have them seated next to one another on a flight. Some striking revelations from the interview
02:22note that Hannah has mostly given birth to their children in their home without any pain relief.
02:27However, in one instance where Daniel wasn't attending the birth, she did get an epidural,
02:31which she describes as having been great. Hannah is also solely responsible for child care and
02:35feeding the family with no hired help despite there being various employees on the farm,
02:39and Daniel even mentioning that sometimes she falls sick from exhaustion. The article also
02:43says that the only space earmarked to be Hannah's own, a small barn she wanted to convert into a
02:47ballet studio, ended up becoming the kids' schoolroom. The Sunday Times article drew a lot
02:51of media attention, as other articles were published that analyzed it further on sites
02:56like Glamour and Axios, the latter of which noted that the interview showcased a pattern of sexism
03:00in the family, from pressures to marry young to the health effects of parenting eight kids in
03:04rural isolation. The article also sparked a furor online, with fans of the Ballerina Farm account
03:10and others weighing a variety of opinions, including that it's irresponsible to promote
03:14the tradwife lifestyle. Posts went viral across Twitter and TikTok with quotes from the article,
03:18women relating to Hannah, and many showing concern and sadness on her behalf. Others
03:23were surprised by the backlash, saying she seems perfectly happy.
03:26And admit you're in danger.
03:30Who are you talking to right now?
03:32The article was also mentioned in a couple of Reddit posts in July 2024,
03:35like one post on July 25th saying,
03:37I genuinely think the reporter went in expecting to report back that Hannah's
03:41situation is not as bad as what it's made out to be online, but what she found was actually worse.
03:45On July 31st, Hannah Nielman herself responded to the article, making it clear that she feels
03:50it portrayed her family incorrectly. She says she was shocked at the article, and described it as
03:54an attack on her family and marriage. She insists she's happy in her marriage and not at all oppressed.
03:59This couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing we said in the interview implied
04:04this conclusion, which leads me to believe the angle taken was predetermined.
04:08What do you think about Hannah and Ballerina Farm?
04:11What do you think about Hannah and Ballerina Farm?