When Hannah Neeleman – an influencer known for her Ballerina Farm social media accounts and aesthetic lifestyle in Utah – finished her interview with the Times of London, she said she felt it had gone well. “We were taken [aback], however, when we saw the printed article,” she explained to her followers in a post on Instagram. “It shocked us, and shocked the world by being an attack on my family and my marriage, portraying me as oppressed with my husband being the culprit.
” {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"“My five little women,” Hannah Neeleman captioned this photo for her nearly 10 million Instagram followers. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram","url":"https://img.
i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/08/09/57c58e10-6e57-48b0-a385-0f5a9b8c9bfd_7390c88c.jpg"} “My five little women,” Hannah Neeleman captioned this photo for her nearly 10 million Instagram followers.
Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram Since its publication, snippets of the article – titled “Meet the queen of the trad wives (and her 8 children)” – have gone viral, sparking an online debate over whether Hannah is truly content, or whether her husband forced her to abandon her dream of becoming a ballerina. So who is Hannah Neeleman, and how did her seemingly ordinary family become embroiled in widespread controversy? Hannah Neeleman’s early life {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Hannah Neeleman gave up a career in ballet to become a pig farmer and homemaker.
Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/08/09/c38cb252-afc1-4e34-aaca-7d0313f0dcec_d7491f3d.
jpg"} Hannah Neeleman gave up a career in ballet to become a pig farmer and homemaker. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram Born on June 25, 1990, in Utah to flower shop owners Chad and Cherie Wright, Hannah was the eighth of nine children raised in a devout Mormon family. She fell in love with ballet as a child and, at 17, left her hometown to pursue her dream at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City, according to Deseret News.
“Dance was my first love. I wanted to be the best,” she shares on the “about us” page of her website. “My brothers still joke that all the profits from the flower shop were funnelled into paying for my pointe shoes and ballet lessons.
This is probably true.” To cover her tuition, she competed in scholarship pageants – beauty contests that offered academic scholarships or tuition money to winners – securing Miss Springville/Mapleton in 2008 and runner-up in Miss New York City in 2010. How did Hannah Neeleman meet her husband? {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Hannah Wright and Daniel Neeleman first met at a college basketball game. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/08/09/df6ba826-5bfb-4b5b-ac56-f33445374c52_d7491f3d.jpg"} Hannah Wright and Daniel Neeleman first met at a college basketball game. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram Everything changed when Hannah met Daniel Neeleman, the son of JetBlue Airlines’ founder David Neeleman.
Daniel, who is two years older than Hannah, was introduced to her by a mutual friend at a college basketball game, according to The Times’ article. “I saw her and I was ready to go,” he said in the interview. “Sign me up.
I was thinking, ‘Let’s get married.’ But she wouldn’t go on a date with me for six months.” {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Hannah Neeleman and Daniel Neeleman got married three months after a second “chance” meeting on a JetBlue flight. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/08/09/b170aad1-ce7f-49c4-9d45-c61c2b1589fc_d7491f3d.jpg"} Hannah Neeleman and Daniel Neeleman got married three months after a second “chance” meeting on a JetBlue flight. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram When Hannah mentioned she was flying from Salt Lake City back to Juilliard on JetBlue, Daniel pulled some strings to arrange for them to sit next to each other.
The two began dating, and although Hannah thought they should date for at least a year before getting married, Daniel was reportedly eager to tie the knot sooner. After just one month of dating, they were engaged and, soon after, they were expecting their first child. Why did Hannah Neeleman give up ballet? {"@context":"https://schema.
org","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"Hannah Neeleman and Daniel Neeleman have no plans to stop having children, and instead are leaving it up to God, they said. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram","url":"https://img.i-scmp.
com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=contain,width=1024,format=auto/sites/default/files/d8/images/canvas/2024/08/09/35b8cd19-7cdf-4e0a-8ed1-98b6f615a0bb_7390c88c.jpg"} Hannah Neeleman and Daniel Neeleman have no plans to stop having children, and instead are leaving it up to God, they said. Photo: @ballerinafarm/Instagram The family moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil , when Daniel took a job at his father’s security company.
While Hannah initially continued dancing professionally, she eventually gave it up for her family. “Our first few years of marriage were really hard. We sacrificed a lot,” she told The Times.
“I gave up dance, which was hard. You give up a piece of yourself. And Daniel gave up his career ambitions.
” The couple now has eight children, ranging in age from 6 months to 12 years old, with no plans to stop expanding the family. In the interview, Hannah shared that she asks God, “Is it time to bring another one to the Earth,” adding: “And I’ve never been told no.” What is Ballerina Farm? The family lives on their property in rural Utah, running their personal brand, Ballerina Farm.
The business offers a wide range of products, including apparel (kitchen aprons, clogs, baseball caps), cookware (teapots, enamel cups, ice cream scoops), and ingredients ranging from sourdough starters and cookie dough to pork and beef. Despite the controversy, Hannah and Daniel continue to share their life with their 9.8 million Instagram followers, 9.
6 million TikTok followers, and 1.7 million YouTube subscribers, posting videos of everything from the brood pitching in to make sheep’s milk ice cream to asparagus tarts. Hannah Neeleman has spoken of her shock at reading a profile of herself in The Times, which dubbed her ‘queen of the trad wives’ and which she felt portrayed her as ‘oppressed’ But even as the Utah-based mum-of-8 continues to spark debate online, the Neeleman family’s Ballerina Farm social accounts only keep growing – with more than 21 million followers to date.
