Ballerina Farm, on the surface, appears sweet, wholesome and aspirational—and to a degree, that may be true about Hannah Neeleman, the dancer and pageant princess turned homesteader, influencer and mom of eight. Some critics, however, believe there may be a darkness lurking underneath Hannah and Daniel Neeleman's seemingly picture-perfect marriage and business.
Find out who Ballerina Farm is and why Ballerina Farm is controversial.
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Who is Ballerina Farm?
Ballerina Farm is the handle and nickname of influencer Hannah Neeleman (née Wright). She has, as of this writing, about 21 million followers across TikTok and Instagram.
Neeleman, born June 25, 1990, was born and raised in Springville, Utah, and grew up in a Mormon family with eight siblings. She was a ballet prodigy and enrolled at a Juilliard summer program when she was 14 years old. She got a scholarship for the Brigham Young University's theatre ballet program and graduated from New York City's prestigious Juilliard School, where she further studied ballet.
Neeleman participated in pageants throughout her life, winning Miss New York City in 2010.
Neeleman met her husband, Daniel Neeleman, when she went back to Utah during her summer break before her senior year at Juilliard. They were engaged within less than a month, married in less than a year and she became one of the first Juilliard students to be pregnant at her graduation ceremony.
After their wedding, the pair spent several years on a Mormon mission in Brazil. Upon moving back to the states, they moved to a 328-acre farm and welcomed eight kids. Hannah documents their lives on Instagram and TikTok under her @ballerinafarm handle, with footage including she and her family making homemade sourdough, gardening and milking cows.
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Ballerina Farm co-CEOs Daniel Neeleman and Hannah Neeleman attend the 2025 TIME100 Creators Launch Party at Gansevoort Rooftop on July 10, 2025, in New York City.Photo by Craig Barritt on Getty Images
That would be Daniel Neeleman, who is the co-founder and co-CEO of Ballerina Farm. While his current family business made him rich, he was already born into a very wealthy Mormon family (more on that in a minute).
Is Ballerina Farm heir to JetBlue?
Daniel's father, David Neeleman, is very rich thanks to several airlines.
David co-founded Morris Air, which Southwest Airlines acquired in 1993, making David $25 million richer just from that sale. He then founded WestJet and NewAir (later JetBlue) and became CEO of Open Skies, which Hewlett Packard acquired in 1999.
David was replaced as CEO and chairman of the board at JetBlue in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and he later founded Azul, a domestic airline in Brazil. (In case you didn't clock it, "azul" means "blue" in Portuguese.)
In 2013, David launched Vigzul, a home security company, where he serves as chief investor and chairman of the board. Two years later, another of David's companies, Atlantic Gateway, bought significant shares in Portugal's TAP Air Portugal, and in 2022, David joined the board of Azorra, an aircraft leasing company. In 2018, he launched yet another airline, Breeze Airways.
Phew! All that to say, Daniel may be an heir to the JetBlue founder's fortune, but he's got a lot of other hands in that big pot, too: David has 10 children including Daniel, all of whom will likely get (or at least want) a piece of that golden pie.
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View this post on InstagramBallerina Farm the brand is known for what Hannah calls "simple living, wholesome food and the daily rhythms that make a house a home." They sell everything from sourdough starters, protein powders (a 36.7 oz. bag will set you back $67), flour, baked goods, meats, dairy, baked goods and home and kitchen wares.
Ballerina Farm the person, as in Hannah Neeleman, is known for her cooking, baking, farming and child-rearing content, as well as for her pageantry: She competed in the Mrs. America pageant (for married women) when she was just two weeks postpartum from her eighth child, admitting to the New York Times that she was "still bleeding a little" at the time.
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What does Ballerina Farm's husband do for a living?
Daniel is the CEO and co-founder of Ballerina Farm, which is his fulltime job.
Daniel and Hannah Neeleman have said they do not have nannies, but they do have a teacher to homeschool their children. Daniel told the Sunday Times in July 2024 that he explicitly did not want the family to have help with their childcare.
Related: Nara Smith's Net Worth and How She Made It
How old was Hannah Neeleman when she got married?
Hannah was 21 years old when she and Daniel (who's about a year older than her) tied the knot.
Why is Ballerina Farm controversial?
Phew, where do we begin? Since gaining popularity, Ballerina Farm has garnered a ton of controversy and criticism. Here are the biggest ones.
While the Ballerina Farm lifestyle may sound idyllic to some, it's not appealing to everyone, and some of Hannah's messaging can be dangerous: She endorses drinking raw milk and encouraged her followers to eschew traditional medicine, both of which can be very harmful, especially to pregnant women and anyone with compromised immune systems. (Learn more about the risks of raw milk here.)
Related: Foods to Avoid If You're Immunocompromised
The Ballerina Farm cutting board was criticized for being overpriced and low quality
The brand recently came under criticism for charging a whopping $259 for what looks like quite a basic cutting board: Experts said it was likely to be flimsy and warp quickly due to the part of the wood used to create it, and others pointed out that a dupe from Pioneer Woman was available at Walmart for less than 6% of the Ballerina Farm price.
Hannah responded to the criticism with a TikTok video of her own, explaining that a local husband and wife make the cutting boards by hand and that because they're so heavy, they're expensive to ship.
@ballerinafarmA few thoughts this evening. Overall just so grateful. Also wanted to mention that @Ballerina Farm Store will be sharing some updates on care etc. for the board and our other products. Stay tuned ?❤️
♬ original sound - Ballerina FarmOne particular Ballerina Farm item, a box of 30 croissants for $144, is pretty pricey (especially compared to, say, purchasing the same amount of croissants from Costco, which would set you back less than $40).
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The Ballerina Farm lifestyle may not be as attainable or sustainable as they make it seem
While the Neelemans happily live off their land, they rarely mention that Daniel comes from a mega-rich family worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Considering real estate and rent prices spiking and wages stagnating over the last 20+ years, many critics have pointed out that it's unlikely any of their followers would be able to afford to raise eight children anywhere, let alone on a 328-acre property, no matter how many bootstraps they pull up.
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When Neeleman competed in the Mrs. America pageant just 12 days after giving birth to her daughter Flora Jo, critics lashed out at the unrealistic standard she was setting for postpartum mothers. She dismissed the criticism, telling the New York Times, “A pageant is not like I’m running a marathon. I’m literally in a chair, getting pampered, mostly.”
A lot of people are concerned about Ballerina Farm's Hannah Neeleman being a 'tradwife'—and worry that Daniel Neeleman may be controlling
Hannah and Daniel Neeleman have come under fire for allegedly endorsing "tradwife" culture and content. (A tradwife is a married woman who promotes traditional western gender roles, in which women stay home, have a ton of kids, raise them without much help and cook everything from scratch; Nara Smith is another example.)
Concerns rose after a profile on Ballerina Farm was published in the Sunday Times in July 2024, in which Hannah admitted that she got an epidural for the labor and delivery of just one of her eight children—and she got it when Daniel was out of town. Daniel also stated that they don't plan their pregnancies, but that somehow Hannah almost always gets pregnant nine months after giving birth.
The piece also explained that having their farm was Daniel's dream, not Hannah's, which she somewhat acknowledged, but still said Daniel "gave up his career ambitions."
“I gave up dance, which was hard. You give up a piece of yourself,” Hannah said, later noting, “My goal was New York City. I left home at 17 and I was so excited to get there, I just loved that energy. And I was going to be a ballerina. I was a good ballerina. But I knew that when I started to have kids my life would start to look different.”
Megan Agnew, the journalist who wrote the article, titled "Meet the queen of the trad wives (and her eight children)," wrote, "I can’t, it seems, get an answer out of [Hannah] Neeleman without her being corrected, interrupted or answered for by either her husband or a child. Usually I am doing battle with steely Hollywood publicists; today I am up against an army of toddlers who all want their mum and a husband who thinks he knows better."
For her part, Hannah later fought back against the tradwife claims, saying in an Instagram video that allegations of Daniel being controlling "couldn't be further from the truth" and that she was disappointed in the profile, explaining, “We thought the interview went really well. We were taken [aback] however, when we saw the printed article, which shocked us, and shocked the world by it being an attack on my family and my marriage.”
In terms of giving up her dreams of being a dancer, she wrote in Business Insider in October 2025 that she takes ballet classes weekly, noting, "It's like this fun hour and a half where I get to relive the glory days."
She also said she tries her best not to let outside noise get to her.
"It's hard to not see some Instagram or TikTok comments, but I typically don't focus on them," she wrote. "People can say a million nice things about you, and then one negative thing, and it hurts in a way that is just human. But I know who I am, and I know what we're doing, and I believe in that."
Related: Martha Stewart, 84, Deems Herself 'The Original Trad Wife' in New Podcast Appearance
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