ballerinafarm / Instagram
CV NEWS FEED // Hannah Neeleman, the woman behind the “Ballerina Farm” Instagram account, has responded to a recent Sunday Times article about her life, which Neeleman described as “an attack on our family and my marriage.”
Neeleman, a former ballerina who trained at Julliard, now resides on a farm in Utah with her husband and eight children. She has over 9 million followers on her Instagram account, where she posts cooking videos and content about her farm and family. They are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints. Neeleman has competed in numerous beauty pageants. She won the “Mrs. American” pageant in 2023 and the “Mrs. Utah” one in 2021.
Megan Agnew, a reporter for The Times, spent the day with the Neelemans on their farm for an article, which the Times published on July 20. Agnew’s article included reflections about the “trad wife” internet phenomenon and described Neeleman in the title of her article as “queen of the ‘trad wives’”. Agnew also wrote a follow-up article further writing about her day with the Neelemans. That article was published two days before Neeleman posted a video responding to Agnew’s first article.
Neeleman said in a July 31 Instagram video that the July 20 article published after the interview “shocked” her and her family.
They had thought the interview went well and seemed similar to many the family had done before, Neeleman said. She called this article “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,” Neeleman said, adding, “Nothing we said in the interview implied this conclusion, which leads me to believe the angle taken was predetermined.”
Neeleman said that for her and her husband, Daniel, the “priority in life is God and family. Everything else comes second.”
She added that the greatest day of her life was the day she married her husband, 13 years ago. They have prioritized their marriage ever since.
“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 said, concluding:
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 for the rest of it. But for now, I’m doing what I love most: being a mother, wife, a business woman, a farmer, a lover of Jesus, and making meals from scratch.
