The unofficial leader of TikTok’s “trad wife” trend—which sees women glorify a return to the traditional roles of mother, homemaker and homesteader—has been thrust into the spotlight with a now-viral profile from British newspaper The Times that revealed the unexpected connection of the popular Ballerina Farm account to the airline fortune behind JetBlue, WestJet and Breeze Airways.
The TikTok logo.
The Ballerina Farm accounts—which count 7.5 million followers on TikTok, 9.1 million on Instagram and 1.6 million on YouTube—star Mormon couple Hannah and David Neeleman, their eight children and life on their 328-acre Utah farm that sees Hannah Neeleman, 34, constantly clad in an apron, cooking from scratch, managing a menagerie of farm animals and glorifying a natural, throwback lifestyle.
The account presents the Neelemans as a wholesome family with a dedication to living a simpler lifestyle, but a revealing profile in the Times (of London) painted a more complicated portrait and went as far as to suggest Neeleman was all but duped into abandoning her dreams to be a professional dancer by her husband, son of JetBlue founder David Neeleman.
There’s no hint of the Neeleman family legacy on the Ballerina Farm accounts, just as there is little reference to who Hannah Neeleman was before she dedicated her life to children and homesteading.
But The Times tells the story of an aspiring young dancer who gave up her dreams to follow Neeleman to Utah after he pulled family strings to get a first date (on a JetBlue flight), insisted they marry after only two months of dating (she was 21 years old) and soon after became pregnant while an undergraduate at Julliard.
In the interview’s few candid moments—which reporter Megan Agnew says came only if she could sneak in a question when her husband and children weren't hovering—Hannah Neelemen revealed a few opinions that seemed to contradict her curated image, including that her goal was to be a ballerina in New York City, she wanted to wait before getting married and she received an epidural with the hospital birth of her child Martha, a dramatic turn from her usual drug-free home births that she called "kinda great.”
Since the interview was published Saturday, it’s gone viral on TikTok, started a conversation around the modern “trad wife” trend Ballerina Farm inadvertently helped become popular and sparked a debate over women’s roles, how traditional values fit into feminism and the secrets that can linger behind the internet’s most famous figures.
The Ballerina Farm accounts have publicly responded to The Times piece.
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“Hannah Neeleman, known to her nine million followers as Ballerina Farm, milks cows, gives birth without pain relief and breastfeeds at beauty pageants,” Agnew wrote. “Is this an empowering new model of womanhood — or a hammer blow for feminism?”
David Neeleman, Daniel’s father, David Neeleman, founded JetBlue, Westjet, Azul Brazilian Airlines, Open Skies, Morris Air and Breeze Airways. He was formerly a private shareholder in Portugal's flag carrier TAP and has a personal fortune in the hundreds of millions. He and his ex-wife have 10 children, including Daniel, and he is a member of the Mormon church.
David Neeleman on Feb. 6, 2003.
Hannah and Daniel Neelemen have almost no outside help in running their massive farm or raising their family, contrary to what many online viewers assumed. They do have help with cleaning, Agnew reported, but the couple employs no nannies or other domestic staff, according to the Times.
There are almost 100 million posts under "tradwife" on TikTok and the trend pushes the idea of a nuclear family with traditional gender roles, often tied to Mormonism or Christianity. The biggest trad wife accounts include Ballerina Farm, Nara Smith (famous for making everything from sunscreen to bubblegum from scratch) and Estee Williams, who has posted videos about women's "biblical submission" to men. The trend has long held on foot in both sides of the feminist argument. On one hand, supporters say women have the right to choose their role in the home and family unit, even if that means glorifying traditional roles. On the other, by launching these massive accounts and drawing in sponsors and millions of views and followers, the influencers are, in a way, bucking the traditional roles and starting thriving businesses. Calculating views, video length, algorithm and the TikTok creator fund, some have speculated stars like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleson make hundreds of thousands of dollars per month via their ultra popular content—not including sponsored posts.