Ballerina Farm's Hannah Neeleman is being accused of creating a 'facade'. We're missing the real story.

It's the profile that women across the world devoured over the weekend. A story about an aspiring ballerina turned beauty pageant queen turned mum-of-eight living on her husband's family property.

We're talking about Ballerina Farm.

The profile published in The Times of London didn't exactly paint Ballerina Farm and the American cookie cutter family behind it as idyllic, unlike the image projected on Instagram and TikTok. 

If anything, it exposed a dark underbelly. Namely, whether or not the woman behind the cult social media account — tradwife content creator Hannah Neeleman — actually wants to be a quintessential Mormon housewife. 

But there's a bigger story that we're not talking about. And it involves the man by Hannah Neeleman's side. 

Watch MM Confessions: My partner doesn't know. Post continues below.

Wait, can we backtrack for a minute? What is Ballerina Farm?

Hannah Neeleman calls 'Ballerina Farm' home. 

The content creator has over 13 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, and welcomed her eighth child in February, in a home birth surrounded by her children and husband, Daniel Neeleman.

They live on a very expensive ranch in Utah, and they not only sell meat and produce, but also their wholesome existence. It's a life lived by the seasons; they milk cows, raise pigs, grow fresh vegetables. Their kids, dressed only in beige and florals, run through the sun-drenched fields. 

Hannah is the perfect homesteader, making everything from scratch. But does she actually want to be? That's the question everyone is now asking. 

But there's a second, equally important question we must ask.

The facade of Ballerina Farm husband, Daniel Neeleman.

In this month's profile piece, journalist Megan Agnew visited Hannah and Daniel and realised that the fantasy they were selling online was just that — a fantasy.

Throughout the profile, Megan pointed out on several occasions that she wasn't able to get a word out of Hannah without Daniel interjecting, writing: "I can't, it seems, get an answer out of Neeleman without her being corrected, interrupted or answered for by either her husband or a child."

Interrupted by kids under the age of 12? Fair enough, there's eight of them.

But interrupted by her husband? There was a subtext to the profile that was glaringly obvious to anyone reading: Daniel appeared to be controlling the narrative. 

The examples continued.

Megan also uncovered that Daniel insisted he and Hannah get married and pregnant within the first three months of meeting, despite her insisting that they "date for a year" so she could finish her ballerina studies at world-renowned dance school, Julliard.

Initially, Hannah wasn't interested in dating Daniel — he even admitted that she wouldn't agree to a date with him for six months. But Daniel pulled some strings at JetBlue to get seated next to her on a five-hour flight, and the rest is history. And by pulled some strings... his dad is the billionaire founder of several commercial airlines, including JetBlue.

Image: Instagram. 

He reportedly convinced her to give up her ballerina dreams and instead go live on a farm with him and live out his Insta-farm-core dreams.

The kids have kept on coming, likely because the deeply religious couple sees falling pregnant as an act of God, so contraception is out of the question. And home births are a must. 

Despite going through labour eight times, Hannah told The Times of London journalist that she only chose to use an epidural once — when Daniel wasn't present during her daughter's delivery three years ago.

Hannah told Megan that the epidural was "kinda great", but she made sure to speak softly so Daniel, who was on the phone at the time, wouldn't hear her. We can only speculate as to why Hannah chose to lower her voice so her husband wouldn't hear that confession.

Daniel didn't want nannies in their home, so they don't. They have a babysitter once a week for their date night. 

He also insisted they split the duties of Ballerina Farm equally. 

"We obviously have a lot of kids, so we have a lot of responsibilities...I take care of more of the ranch side of things, Hannah takes care of more of the marketing and the products that we work on, the product development," he said. 

"We have defined roles on some things but we also share so many roles, especially with parenting we're very 50/50. Hannah does more...I do as much as I can."  

Daniel comes from a powerful family, who has a net worth rumoured to be around $400 million. He had zero experience in ranching or any knowledge of living on a farm — he actually grew up in the posh suburbs of Connecticut without a single animal. But he knew what he wanted. 

A TikTok from Hannah has subsequently gone viral too. In it, Hannah opens her birthday gift from her husband. She's expecting tickets to Greece, a place she's always dreamed of visiting. 

But just like her ballerina dream, this too doesn't pan out. She's instead given an egg gathering apron from Daniel. Keep in mind his dad is the founder of JetBlue, so plane tickets would have been very readily accessible to him.

@hannal.ballerinafarm ❤️❤️❤️ #foryou #ballerinafarm ♬ original sound - hannal.ballerinafarm

Neither Daniel nor Hannah has spoken specifically about the recent profile.

Instead, they are posting online as per usual — going on 'dairy farm date nights', making raw milk and asparagus tarts.

There are two vocal trains of thoughts online about Ballerina Farm's star couple.

Yes, maybe Hannah's dream was to become a ballerina. Perhaps now being a dairy farmer's wife, making all their food from scratch and homeschooling the kids is what brings her joy and fulfillment. All power to her. 

But the other equally loud group online believes Hannah's husband is a bit of a jerk. 

In a second additional article from the journalist, published this week, Megan doubled down on her opinions of who Daniel really is.

"He had staunchly traditional views, combined with unmistakably 21st-century business acumen. He expected his wife to stay at home with the children. He was a 'firm believer', he said, that men 'make stuff work' and women 'beautify'," she wrote.  

"Daniel had more opinions, leading the way when I asked about their stance on abortion, marriage, feminism and the label 'trad wives'. But the most surprising part of the day — perhaps naively on my part — was trying to talk to her [Hannah] alone."

Feature Image: Instagram @ballerinafarm.

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