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Business of Fashion
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business of Fashion
The Business of Ballerina Farm
MIDWAY, UTAH — Many who stumble upon Hannah Neeleman on TikTok find themselves asking one question after they've spent a bit of time admiring her photogenic farm life: How on earth does she find the time to bake so much homemade bread while raising eight kids? Neeleman chalks it up to meal planning and plenty of advanced prep. But when it comes to Ballerina Farm, the lifestyle brand she launched with husband David Daniel Neeleman, she's enlisted a staff of 60, including multiple chefs, to develop her brand's growing array of food, home, body and wellness products. 'It definitely doesn't happen without a team behind you,' said Neeleman while serving cups of homemade buttermilk at a preview of her brand's new store in May. The Ballerina Farm Store opens in mid-June in the 6,000-person town of Midway, about half an hour south of Utah's ritzy Park City ski area. With a Japanese-inspired charred wood exterior and reclaimed barnwood floors, it has the sort of upscale rustic charm that's equally at home in rural Utah, or a hip shopping street in Los Angeles' Silver Lake neighbourhood. The store sells everything from the brand's Farmer Protein Powder with colostrum to soap made from sourdough crumbs and pig lard, as well as dairy products of the pasteurised variety. A sign on the wall promotes raw milk, which they sell at their farm stand. ADVERTISEMENT Many products are inspired by — and sometimes sourced from — her family farm. Others are imported. Customers can buy cardamom apricot amaretti and ginger rhubarb strawberry kombucha at an in-store cafe counter, or purchase 20th-century Belgian art. 'We've just had fun bringing in beautiful products that are the best in the world,' Neeleman said during the tour. 'Our French salt — I fell in love with salt when we went to France three years ago.' A former Juilliard ballet student who gave up her dance career to buy and run a family farm with her husband, Neeleman's idyllic content has attracted nearly 22 million followers across social platforms. On TikTok, the hashtag #ballerinafarm is up to 2.5 billion views. That hashtag will bring you to a mix of Neeleman's own videos, depicting milking sheep or rolling dough, but also an ecosystem of fans and critics who react to her every move, whether it's receiving an egg apron from her husband or competing in a beauty pageant two weeks after having a baby. With their massive and highly engaged online audience locked in, the Neelemans are moving fast to expand Ballerina Farm into a real-world lifestyle empire. There's the new store, and 20 employees hired in the last four months. Its bestselling Farmer Protein Powder will be stocked at New York's Happier Grocery, the Big Apple's answer to Erewhon, in June. The Neelemans want to create an agritourism site complete with hospitality and an event space. They say the business is profitable, while declining to share sales numbers. The Ballerina Farm Store in Midway, Utah. (Ballerina Farm) Ballerina Farm already has the hallmarks of some of the biggest and trendiest lifestyle brands on the market, with a farm-themed twist. Its product lineup and price points (that protein powder retails for $67 a bag) are similar to brands like Flamingo Estate, while Neeleman's cooking videos evoke an even more industrious Martha Stewart, who follows her on Instagram (viewers can try their luck at home with Ballerina Farm's $89 sourdough kit). TikTok especially has given Ballerina Farms instant access to a global fandom, most of whom have no intention of milking their own cows. Los Angeles is the top city for e-commerce orders, while 62.5 percent of Hannah's social media followers are outside the United States, according to Daniel Neeleman. ADVERTISEMENT Hustle Agriculture As avid followers know, the Neelemans married three months after their first date, in 2011. Two years later, the twosome were raising goats in Brazil, which sparked the idea for Ballerina Farm 1.0. 'We wanted the farm to make money; we wanted to be able to support ourselves,' said Hannah Neeleman. Daniel left his job as a director at Vigzul, a home security company started by his father, JetBlue founder David Neeleman, and by 2017, the couple was raising pigs in Utah. They turned to social media to promote their new artisanal meat business, gaining a niche following of customers and fellow farmers. 'When we were first starting [on] Instagram, we had a lot of homesteaders that followed us, because we were really in the thick of building things — our first milk cows and building chicken coops,' said Hannah Neeleman. But it wasn't until the pandemic that she became a mainstream success. 'I remember not more than a week going by when someone was like, 'You're exploding on TikTok,'' she said of the account that is now up to 9.8 million followers. Her Instagram following, which was at 443,000 in January 2022, grew to 8.3 million by January 2024. Media attention raised her profile even more. A viral July 2024 profile of her life in the UK's Sunday Times was followed by appearances in The New York Times, Glamour and other publications. (Neeleman hasn't welcomed all of the attention, calling the Sunday Times profile an 'attack' in a video posted shortly after it ran). Each piece sparked a firestorm of online discussion, as audiences obsessed over her life path and marriage, which ballooned into broader debates about whether her content implicitly supported 'tradwife' ideology, especially after she was featured in a 59-page spread in Evie, a publication aimed at conservative women. A representative said the feature 'was not intended as a political statement.' ADVERTISEMENT All that attention and world-building elevates Neeleman to a category of fame beyond social media influencers, and into the realm of mass-market celebrities, said James Nord, founder of influencer marketing agency Fohr. The logical next step would be a reality show. Daniel Neeleman says they've been offered 'dozens' of opportunities, but haven't signed onto one yet. 'Never say never,' he said. The Simple Life The day before the store preview, Hannah Neeleman led a tour of her family's newly built 150-cow dairy. She discussed the finer points of manure collection (she said a robotic 'manure roomba' gathers it), shared her views on the virtues of raw milk and described the best type of feed for optimising cream content. The Neelemans produce a portion of what they sell, and they refer to Ballerina Farm's brand ethos as 'close living' — sourcing locally and homeschooling their children to help on the farm. As demand has grown, so has their supply chain. The handmade soap is made by a neighbour; the protein powder sources whey from Ireland. 'We're limited; we're a small farm,' said Daniel Neeleman. 'We have to lean on other farms to help supply us.' Even as they expand into product categories like wellness that can be shipped internationally in large quantities, there remain 'products that we'll probably never be able to scale, and we love that,' said Hannah Neeleman. One of the main ones: their raw milk, which can't be sold outside their own store, per health regulations. The brand's website says customers need to sign a waiver to buy it, and a required disclaimer on the vintage-style bottles warns that it 'can be unsafe.' The success of the brand hinges on how many followers tuning into Ballerina Farm out of aspiration, drama — or the combination of both — will end up placing orders for products. The Neelemans, meanwhile, remain practical about their ambitions. 'We're not trying to go public. We're not trying to franchise. We're not trying to be in every gas station and every grocery store,' said Daniel Neeleman. 'That isn't really what makes us excited. We like to keep things small and special, and that's kind of where we're at right now.'
Telegraph
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘We're missionaries, in a weird way': The Mormon wives scandalising the church
Mormonism is having a moment. On TikTok and Instagram; in hit stage and TV shows; amongst the believers forming snaking queues outside churches from Salt Lake City to South Kensington. In the era of Trump's America, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with all its conservative rules and regulations, is riding a wave of increasing popularity. Social media is dominated by Mormon 'trad wife' influencers such as Nara Smith and Ballerina Farm, who present an idyllic, old-fashioned daily existence filled with Bible study, baking and breastfeeding their never ending supply of children to their millions of followers. Sales of The Book of Mormon, the LDS's holy scripture, have doubled since the start of the millennium, with the church – which has around 16 million active members worldwide – reporting that more than 200 million copies had been distributed by 2023 (up from 100m in 2000). But there's another factor at play in the church's resurgence. Last year, reality TV gained a new megahit in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, a soapy, scandalous series about a group of female Mormon influencers (known as MomTokkers) living in the state of Utah. Disney reports that season two, which launched last week, has already been watched by five million people (a marked increase from the first season premiere, according to the studio, although the increase has not been publicly declared). It includes all of your regular reality TV ingredients: ex-best friends turned enemies, villainous backstabbers, outlandish gossip (illicit sex! Adultery! Gambling!) and carefully controlled social events that, 99 per cent of the time, end in screaming matches. Set against the backdrop of a swinging scandal that almost tore apart the lives of some of the show's cast back in 2022, it's a recipe for TV gold. That scandal centred mostly on Taylor Frankie Paul, the show's main catalyst for entertainment: she swears, gets arrested, cries over her volatile relationships, screams in other women's faces. She was also the one to reveal three years ago that she, her ex-husband and several other Mormon couples – all with large social media followings – were engaging in 'soft swinging'. Divorce followed for both Paul and season two's new cast member Miranda McWhorter; pariah status seemed set in stone. Until it wasn't, and fears that they would be shunned by the church instead resulted in a hit TV show about their personal lives. Season one set Paul up as a star capable of rivalling reality TV's most famous agents of chaos (The Real Housewives of Atlanta's NeNe Leakes, Love Island's Maura Higgins, Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner) with her messy family and relationship dramas and love of confrontation. But there was always a niggling feeling amongst viewers that we wouldn't understand the full story until McWhorter – Paul's one-time best friend, fellow leading MomTok influencer and, vitally, swinger – shared her side. And finally, in season two, we get just that. McWhorter, 27, appears on screen insisting that her sole motivation for joining the cast was financial: she was freshly divorced from teenage sweetheart Chase (who reportedly expressed his feelings for Paul, after the swinging scandal) with two young children to provide for. The other women are immediately furious, and accuse her of 'clout chasing' – meaning she wants in on the lucrative brand deals they've all come to expect as a result of the show's popularity. But it's evident that, without McWhorter and Paul – the original MomTokkers, along with Camille Munday – none of them would have a show to begin with. Much of McWhorter's screen time is spent cleaning up the messy details of what the other cast members had heard about the scandal: was there sex involved? (No). So it was just kissing? (Apparently). The breakdown of her marriage to Chase is addressed during a fiery episode when he confronts Dakota, the father of Paul's youngest child, but it's mostly told through the prism of her relationship with Paul. Over a hilariously classic reality TV-setup of a serene lunch date gone wrong (any Made in Chelsea fans will know the sort), McWhorter and Paul duke it out, eventually declaring that they've resolved their differences. Speaking to me over Zoom, McWhorter says she knew the other cast members would be unsure of her motivations for joining the show. 'Obviously none of us are doing this for charity,' she says. 'But that's just an added benefit, because I've been able to formulate real friendships'. To keep things separate, she says she and co-star Whitney Leavitt work under a different management to the other women, meaning they're not competing for the same deals. It wasn't just the other women who took a while to get on board with her joining the cast, however. Her family had their own concerns. 'It's definitely been a difficult challenge for them,' McWhorter says. 'Even them accepting my different perspectives on the church itself, and where I'm at with it, has been hard.' @maycineeley 😭💔🫶🏼 #momtok ♬ original sound - kardashianshulu Her main reason for joining the show late, she says, was to navigate her divorce off-camera – and to let the heat from the swinging scandal die down. 'There was a lot of judgement during the swinging scandal, and now that the show has come out of it, it's more acceptable. [Other Mormons] don't look at me the way they used to, which is unfortunate, but also kind of the name of the game sometimes'. Being around Paul, too, had felt difficult and triggering – 'I wasn't sure if I was ready to put myself in that position' – but having resolved their differences on screen, it appears to have worked out. However, the success of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives has caused some consternation in the church itself, with other LDS members concerned it offers a negative window to their everyday lives. Prior to the release of the first season, the church issued a statement on its official website decrying the 'stereotypes' and 'gross misrepresentations' made about their members via the show. Though some of the cast members are devout followers (Jennifer Affleck, Mikayla Matthews, Mayci Neeley, Leavitt), the others are largely women who grew up in the church but have since distanced themselves from it: Paul, Layla Taylor, Demi Engemann, Jessi Ngatikaura. Affleck was publicly called out on social media by her extended family for choosing to take part and broadcast her marriage troubles. A prominent Mormon fashion influencer, who also lives in Utah, tells me that some of the girls in the show have become laughing stocks, viewed by their communities as fame-hungry and ungodly. The LDS's famously strict rules – no coffee or alcohol, definitely no sex before marriage – are bent to the women's will rather than followed: coffee gives way to litres and litres of fizzy soda; beers are sneakily sipped at pool parties; the women attend a Chippendales strip show on a trip to Las Vegas. Many Mormons choose to wear holy 'temple garments', made up of cotton shorts and vest, differing via gender, under their modest clothing. But in The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, crop tops and mini skirts reign supreme; it's immediately noticeable just how many of these women have had Botox and facial filler. They're also all addicted to TikTok – or the #MomTok corner of it, anyway, where they have been luring in followers with dance and lifestyle videos since the pandemic. Leavitt, the show's resident villain (her arguments with Paul dominated much of the first season, and in the second, she regularly fights with Engemann and Matthews, who accuse her of being vindictive and drama-hungry), boasts one of the biggest follower counts, with almost three million fans across various platforms. She felt the sting of her large following for the first time four years ago, when a video of her dancing in front of her son's hospital incubator while he was being treated in intensive care (he is now healthy) went viral and the internet branded her a monster en masse. Then came the show, in which Leavitt's love for confrontation put her at the epicentre of seemingly every drama or argument. The villain role was one she took on by accident, she tells me. 'I can't help but be myself, and unfortunately, that gets me in trouble sometimes,' she laughs. New viewers may be surprised, given she looks like the vision of wholesomeness with her prim dresses, simple blonde bob and apparent love of being pregnant (the 32-year-old welcomes her third child in season two). The outfits aren't the only thing masking her tough edge – when I speak to her, her soft voice and girly giggles make you think more of a teenage cheerleader than a reality TV antagonist. In the show, Leavitt is unafraid to remove herself from toxic situations or skip events populated by cast members she doesn't like entirely, a decision she says she made to make her 'mental health a priority' and protect her family. As for criticism from the public, who argue the show makes a mockery of the church, she responds: 'I think it's a lot louder online than it is in person. People send me comments and I'm like 'Are you even Mormon?' I still go to church, and it's very welcoming. Obviously people love to talk about the show and they want the behind-the-scenes, inside scoop, and of course I zip my lips'. If anything, she suggests, the show has been a way of spreading the word of the church: 'Maybe we're actually missionaries, in a weird way'. @taylorfrankiepaul Don't ask me how I know all the trendy trends though. #momtok #coparenting ♬ original sound - 🧍🏾♀️🧍🏾♀️ For all the controversy, though, the success of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives seems only likely to keep growing. Its stars appear on US talk shows and other reality programmes (including Vanderpump Villa), it has millions of viewers, and a quick search of the title on TikTok not only pulls up clips from the show but countless videos advising how fans can channel the style, lifestyle choices or beauty treatments of the cast. For those worried about the rise of 'trad wife' dynamics, especially in the US, as reproductive and civil rights come increasingly under threat, the show's popularity hints at a darker trend: where beautiful women, meant to serve as perfect housewives who bend to their husband's every whim, monetise their submission – in turn making said husbands very, very rich. These women exist on a corner of the internet not that far removed from Andrew Tate's legions of twisted followers, who decry any woman who isn't conventionally attractive or willing to conform to traditional values. One only has to look at Affleck, who spends the majority of her time on screen denying to the other women that her husband is abusive. The misogynistic insults he throws at her, and his expectations that she be a full-time stay at home wife while also providing financially through her work on social media, make them believe otherwise. Fans of the show – and its cast – would argue that the women's decision to monetise their social media content is an easy way to earn big bucks; the best of both worlds where they can simultaneously rear children, churn out countless loaves of homemade sourdough and become financially secure. McWhorter and Leavitt are adamant that the best part of being a cast member is the ready-made friendships with other women – but scanning their plethora of brand deals online, one imagines it's more likely to be the thousands of dollars sitting in the bank.
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The TRUTH about Ballerina Farm... and what it's really like behind the scenes
Hannah Neeleman, known to her nearly 20 million followers by Ballerina Farm, perhaps became the most famous 'tradwife' in the world after a Sunday Times interview controversially labeled her the 'most well-known' of this particular brand of influencers. The social media star and entrepreneur lives on a 328-acre farm in Kamas, Utah, with her husband, Jet Blue scion Daniel, 35, and their eight children, showing their everyday life online to their large collective following. Raised in a large Mormon family in Utah, Hannah was the eighth of nine children. Though she trained as a ballerina at Julliard, hence the name, she gave up dancing professionally shortly after graduation, instead choosing to pursue a family and farming. Online, Hannah is primarily known for her aesthetically pleasing videos in the kitchen, where she whips up elaborate, homemade meals for her family. She shows followers how she makes herbed spaghetti, mixing the flour and egg by hand and then stretching it in her KitchenAid pasta attachment, or making raspberry jam from scratch. As their farm has grown, the Neelemans have built a booming business around their brand, selling everything from $67 Farmer Protein Powder to $44 sourdough kits, and various homemade spreads and seasonings. Customers can also buy frozen goods, like chocolate croissants, as well as cuts of meat, which comes from their farm and their sister farms throughout the US. They have their own meat processing facility in Springville, Utah. Neeleman's videos are captivating to her audience, to put it lightly. The idyllic life she portrays through her content seems to elicit an awed reaction from many, while others watch through a critical lens, unable to look away. Last year, the family weathered a media storm after the piece published in The Times of London titled, 'Meet the queen of the 'trad wives' (and her eight children).' The story highlighted certain complexities of Hannah's lifestyle, painting a particular picture about her relationship with her husband, parenting, her Mormon faith, and her career as a professional dancer. The writer implied Hannah was living a life that she didn't enjoy, or worse - one that she didn't choose. For her part, Hannah addressed the controversy afterward, telling viewers she felt like the piece was an 'attack on her family.' She claimed that it portrayed her as 'oppressed,' with her husband being the 'culprit.' She'd already refuted the 'tradwife' title, telling The Times she didn't 'identify with it' because although she is married and has children, she feels like she and Daniel are 'paving a lot of paths that haven't been paved before.' The Daily Mail visited Ballerina Farm in Utah - where we saw for ourselves what it's really like on the TikTok-famous farm. To perhaps the surprise of some viewers, and especially their most outspoken critics, the Neelemans are running a full-fledged business empire - and there's a lot more than meets the eye to both the brand and the couple themselves. During the Daily Mail's time in Utah, we traveled to the couple's new brick-and-mortar market, and had the opportunity to go on a private tour of their farm, led by Hannah and Jonathan Curley, their director of agriculture. The farm, which is nestled right in the Utah mountains, is vast and houses a red barn emblazoned with 'Ballerina Farm.' The sprawling land is home to 120 dairy cows and 150 cows total, who go out to pasture as often as they want and are milked whenever feels necessary - sometimes by hand, and sometimes by the couple's contact-sensing Lely robot. Jonathan and the Neelemans work as a team when it comes to the dairy. According to Hannah, a nutritionist comes in for the cows once a month, and tells the couple what to add to the cow's diets for the creamiest milk possible. Recently, it's been cotton seed. The farm was surprisingly quiet too, as Hannah and Jonathan explained that this is how a dairy should be. We learned that cows that moo are actually in need of something, and it's better to have a calm dairy. 'Daniel and I and the Ballerina Farm team, we do nothing halfway,' Hannah told the Daily Mail, after feeding us farm-fresh butter, fresh-baked croissants, which tasted like they were from a bakery in Paris, and a homemade orange seltzer. Lunch was a delightful mix of Ballerina Farm beef kofta with olives, pickled red onions and tossed parsley, as well as sugar snap peas and ricotta, salad, and glazed carrots and hummus. The farm was surprisingly quiet too, as Hannah and Jonathan explained that this is how a dairy should be The sprawling land is home to 120 dairy cows and 150 cows total, who go out to pasture as often as they want and are milked whenever feels necessary - sometimes by hand, and sometimes by the couple's contact-sensing Lely robot We were treated to an array of delicious food while we were on the farm, including a homemade orange seltzer 'We really try to provide products that are sourced in a way that's beautiful and direct and also, we want to be able to offer people delicious food,' she continued. 'I think people will think what they want to think, I guess, but when they come to our stores, our physical spaces, we want them to feel that love and intention.' Despite Ballerina Farm's booming success, one product continues to spark controversy - the raw milk they sell that has not been pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria. The polarizing product has stirred debate online, with heated discussions often playing out in the comments of Hannah's videos. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, consuming raw milk, which has become a trendy product among influencers and celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, can lead to 'serious health risks.' Despite the health risks, Hannah defends the sale of Ballerina Farm's raw milk, which the farm says is tested every day. 'There are so many benefits to raw milk nutritionally,' she told the Daily Mail, adding: 'But it does need to be produced in a very clean environment, and the cows need to be clean, and you have to make sure that every step of the way is just monitored.' 'We have an amazing team that's, like, so meticulous… so it's really fun being able to stand with total confidence behind the milk, and people are excited about it,' she added. However, Hannah did share that she feels a lot of milk today 'still needs to be pasteurized.' 'We have an amazing team that's, like, so meticulous… so it's really fun being able to stand with total confidence behind the milk, and people are excited about it,' she added 'I feel like if you're able to find farms that are local and small, and have good procedures, then I stand by raw, I think it's so great. But honestly, we love all milk. If we're out and about and we can only get pasteurized, like, we definitely drink it,' she shared. Last summer, Cleveland Clinic warned about the health risks that come along with drinking raw milk, such as salmonella, and Listeria monocytogenes. In addition, it can also put you at risk for avian flu, which has been on the rise over the past year. Though, not everything they sell is raw. Their team pasteurizes some of their other milk products, like their chocolate milk, as well as their yogurt, butter, and cheese. 'When we started farming, it was a whole new energy in life that we found, because there is something so beautiful about raising your own food,' Hannah said. 'The energy and passion comes from what we do.' Hannah explained that when she and Daniel first got married, just months after they began dating, she could tell that his heart was in agriculture. 'When we first got married, I really could tell that his love was with animals. It was every weekend or every night that he had off, he was going to tour a farm, or meet with farmers,' Hannah described to the Daily Mail of her husband. 'He learns a lot from farmers and from people we met along the way. That was the highlight of our trips to Europe, and to Maine, just meeting the people that are growing their own food and how they're doing it,' she continued. When they bought their first farm in Spanish Fork, Utah, which tragically burned down in 2018, Hannah said that the farmer they purchased it from 'really took Daniel under his wing,' teaching him about irrigation, building fences, and the health of the animals. 'He learns a lot from farmers and from people we met along the way. That was the highlight of our trips to Europe, and to Maine, just meeting the people that are growing their own food and how they're doing it,' she continued Upon returning from our trip to Utah, it was clear Ballerina Farm is not just a frilly 'tradwife' business, or just operating under a TikTok bubble strictly limited to her aesthetically-pleasing content - it's a real business entity, and a brand that the family has big plans for 'There have just been so many people in our lives that have taught us, and we're always learning too, we love traveling and going to farms, because in a way, they're life-changing, every farm visit,' Hannah said. As for the future of Ballerina Farm? The couple has big dreams. In the next few years, Hannah and Daniel want to open an agricultural tourism site on their farm, where visitors can experience a microdairy, chickens, a market garden, and farm stand. They also have plans to build out a creamery. 'We just want to be able to give our community part of Ballerina Farm in a way that's really thought-out and beneficial, educating,' Hannah shared. Now, the couple are expanding their business to their first brick-and-mortar storefront in Midway, set to open this June. Daily Mail got a sneak preview of the store, which was stocked with all of their own products, including their meat, as well as a curated selection of items that they love. In addition to buying groceries, you can also buy fresh-baked goods and sandwiches. Upon returning from our trip to Utah, it was clear Ballerina Farm is not just a frilly 'tradwife' business, or just operating under a TikTok bubble strictly limited to her aesthetically-pleasing content - it's a real business entity, and a brand that the family has big plans for. Although Daniel's family is worth an estimated $400 million, the couple appears to be self-sufficient, just as they've always dreamed - though the brand declined to disclose sales numbers to the Daily Mail. As for Hannah, we didn't see a woman who is oppressed, but rather a serious entrepreneur. With such a huge following, controversy and the occasional backlash is inevitable, but it's clear Ballerina Farm will be just fine either way.
The Sun
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Ketamine, swinging, teen pregnancies & cheating scandals – the shocking scandals of the modern day Mormon church
LIFE in the Mormon Church has been kept behind closed doors for the most part - that is, until a fly on the wall Disney show took over our TV screens. Our favourite reality shows need a generous dose controversy to keep the audience engaged - which is exactly what Taylor Frankie Paul and her gang provide in Secret Wives of Mormon Wives. 7 7 Strict Mormon rules dictate no sex before marriage, a ban on coffee and booze whilst adultery ''is unequivocally condemned by the Lor d ''. But Taylor Frankie Paul, 30, the creator of 'MomTok' claims these rules get regularly broken. It all started on TikTok, where many Mormon wives, including Taylor Frankie Paul, Nara Smith and Hannah from Ballerina Farm, were able to make mega cash. Men are typically the breadwinners in the Church, while many (although not all) women stay at home with the kids. Like any other religion, Mormonism, or the Latter Day Saint (LDS) movement, has a clear set of values and moral codes its worshippers have to follow and abide by. But while alcohol and caffeinated drinks, including black tea, are off the table for its followers, what really goes on inside the community is a life of debauchery. From soft swinging to drug taking, cheating scandals and teen pregnancies, Disney's series 2 reveals even more about the dark side of Mormonism. FULL SWING 'MomTok' exploded on TikTok during lockdown, but SLOMW star Taylor blew the whole thing up in May 2022 - when she posted a video announcing her split from her husband. She later revealed she, her husband and other Mormon couples (who she has never publicly named) were "soft swingers". Camille Munday and Miranda McWhorter, who Taylor had often previously joked were her 'sister wives', were drawn into the scandal by internet sleuths. Secret Lives Of Mormon Wives FINALLY reveals stunning swinger from group sex sessions in first look at series two Both women denied being a part of the parties and declined to be on the resulting reality show... until now. Miranda's explosive appearance on SLOMW was one of the big draws of the new series, and her former friends were soon grilling her on camera. Miranda, who is now a single mum, admitted she DID go to the parties but insisted the furthest she went was games of Spin the Bottle. She continues to deny that anything more sexual happened. 7 Speaking on the Viall Podcast, Taylor said she was "drinking and partying" with her friends when "the guys were like, 'You girls should make out. Make out. It's hot.' And we were like, 'OK, it's hot.' So we make out. "And that's that and I feel like I had done that in my younger years so it wasn't a big deal to me. 'And then it was like, 'Let's take off your clothes and do lingerie pictures together while making out.' It just escalated." A game of blindfolded spin the bottle came later, with Taylor revealing how the other women's husbands would kiss her and she'd have to guess who it was. But there was one couple in particular she and her husband were invested in - and discussed going all the way with, before deciding not to. Taylor claims she had already developed feelings for her friend's husband and he had felt the same - leading to them going 'all the way' and directly causing her divorce. She has never named him or his wife. Who is Taylor Paul? Taylor Frankie Paul is a social media influencer primarily known for her presence on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Here is a general timeline of her career: Rise to Fame 2020: Taylor begins to gain popularity on TikTok. Her content primarily features comedy, dance routines, and lifestyle videos. She quickly amasses a large following due to her engaging and relatable content. Late 2020: By the end of the year, Taylor has become one of the more recognisable faces on TikTok, especially within the "Mormon MomTok" community, which consists of Mormon mothers sharing their lives and experiences. Career Highlights 2021: Taylor continues to grow her influence on TikTok and expands her presence to other social media platforms such as Instagram. She collaborates with other influencers and brands, further increasing her visibility. 2022: Taylor's personal life becomes a topic of interest as she shares more about her experiences and challenges, resonating with many of her followers. Her authenticity helps her maintain a loyal fan base. 2023: Taylor remains active on social media, continuing to create content that appeals to her audience. She explores new opportunities, including potential partnerships and brand deals. Personal Life Taylor is open about her life as a mother and often includes her children in her content. She also shares insights into her marriage and family dynamics, which are a significant part of her online persona. Current Activities As of 2023, Taylor Frankie Paul continues to be a prominent figure in the social media landscape. She is active on various platforms and engages with her audience through regular posts and interactions. Please note that specific dates and events may vary as Taylor's career is continually evolving, and new developments can occur. KETAMINE USE Despite alcohol and caffeine being banned, Utah mum Jen Affleck claimed ketamine use is a "grey area" for the Church, while filming herself using the drug with her husband. Jen, 25, met her future hubby Zac Affleck on a Mormon dating app when she was 18. After getting tying the knot in 2019, they had their first child, a daughter named Nora, in 2021, and a son named Luca in 2023. When the #MomTok ladies ended up at a Chippendales show in Las Vegas, she and Zac had a huge row, which played out on series 1 of the show. Jen told her co-stars Zac said he 'didn't want to be married to her' if she 'does stuff like this''. Season 2 sees the couple to attempt to work this out, with controversial ketamine therapy. 7 "Zac and I will definitely have a lot to work on, and ketamine therapy is supposed to reset a lot of past traumas or habits you've created," Jen explained in a confessional. Ketamine is a "dissociative anesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects," according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The drug "distorts the perception of sight and sound and makes the user feel disconnected and not in control," and "can induce a state of sedation (feeling calm and relaxed), immobility, relief from pain, and amnesia''. In 2019, America's Food and Drug Administration approved a nasal spray called esketamine, derived from ketamine, as a medication for depression. Ketamine therapy - which is currently not legal in the UK - is a treatment that uses low doses of the drug in order to manage various mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Acknowledging that people might have strong feelings about a member of the Mormon Church trying such unconventional methods, Jen explained: "Ketamine is in the grey area when it comes to the church. "Yeah, the church doesn't promote ketamine, but it's definitely not like a commandment exactly," she noted. "Ketamine is a pure example of how much he's willing to do to show up for the relationship," Jen concluded, before the couple were each given an IV dose in a special facility. "Never thought we'd get to this point where we'd be doing drugs together," Jen laughed. TV viewers also saw the mum lose focus for a second before sharing, "Oh, it hit me. It's hitting me right now. The room is spinning." The couple could be seen napping during the therapy, and later connected through dreams they had about their early dates. CHEAT SHEET 7 With adultery being utterly condemned by God, you'd think those in the limelight would be more careful. But it seems that some can't resist a bit of danger - including Whitney Leavitt's husband Conner, who was caught using Tinder to flirt with other women on Secret Wives. Whitney clarified that while there was no physical cheating, the issue has been going on for "our whole marriage." "Full on conversations with women and pictures and all of that stuff," she said, explaining Conner was both sending and receiving nude photos. "It makes me feel like my whole marriage was just like a lie." Of course, there's also the issue of Taylor swinging with her ex-husband and a group of their friends. And her latest relationship, which led to the birth of her third child, is now in trouble too. After months of denial from baby daddy Dakota, episode 1 of season 2 sees Taylor sit down with Jenna - who is rumoured to be his 'other woman'. Jenna confirmed Dakota had hooked up with her while dating Taylor, in the early days of their relationship and before she got pregnant. "I was the night girl that you came over to at night, and you were asking her (Jenna) on day dates and telling her cute things. I feel like a piece of f***ing trash," Taylor sobbed on camera. GETTING DRUNK According to the church, coffee and tea were banned as part of the Word of Wisdom from God as they claim in the 18th century it was used as a substitute for alcohol - also a big no-no among believers. However, some of the rule-breaking Mormon wives are seen enjoying vodka and wine, especially Jessi who says it doesn't affect her belief in the church. Taylor even shared a recent TikTok video of herself sipping a cup of coffee as she went to clean her house - and we can't blame her being a busy mum-of-three with a newborn. She was also arrested in 2022 which was captured on the show after getting drunk and throwing a chair at her partner, but has now been sober for over a year. Many Mormons, and the church, claim that some rules shouldn't be questioned and simply taken as the Word of God. 7 TEEN PREGNANCIES They say that good things come in threes, and that certainly seems to be the case for the cast of this reality TV series. Back in February, within the space of ten days, three of the eight MomTok creators announced that they are expecting. Jen Affleck, Mikayla Matthews and Mayci Neeley each uploaded wholesome snaps with their families dressed in shades of white and cream - and their baby bumps on full display. One of them, Mikalyla, currently has three children with husband Jace Terry - son Beckham, seven, and daughters Tommie, three and Haven, five. The 24-year-old became a mum for the first time as a teenager. 'I had my first kid at 17. I didn't even know what I liked to do anymore because I was just a mum. That's what I did,' she told in September 2024. Sharing the wonderful news of the latest family addition, Mikayla told People: 'It was definitely a surprise! 'We were not planning or trying. I miss my period a lot with my health issues, so for me it's normal to sometimes be off track. 'It's so wild to me that we'll be a family of six. I feel like it's the Mormon in me coming out,' the 24-year-old added. 'I'm surrounded by Mormon culture still and my husband's siblings all have so many kids,' she continued. 'They're like, 'Once you hit three kids, you can have 10 kids,' That's kind of the mindset I have." CHURCH'S SAY In a statement released by the church prior to the TV show's release they called out recent "productions" that depict Latter-day Saints in an inaccurate fashion. "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, like other prominent global faith communities, often finds itself the focus of the attention of the entertainment industry," the statement read. "Some portrayals are fair and accurate, but others resort to stereotypes or gross misrepresentations that are in poor taste."
Time Magazine
29-04-2025
- Health
- Time Magazine
The History of Why Raw Milk Regulation is Necessary
On April 21, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it will be suspending its oversight of the labs that conduct safety and quality testing on the nation's milk supply. The move comes as raw milk is ascendant in federal public health policy. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for the end of what he deems the 'aggressive suppression' of raw dairy by public health authorities, meaning that more deregulation may be on the way. Today's raw milk evangelists like Kennedy claim that it has more nutrients, benefits the immune system, and that kids are healthier when they consume raw milk rather than pasteurized dairy. Public health authorities have debunked these claims while highlighting thousands of illnesses linked to raw milk. Nevertheless, raw dairy is increasingly popular with American consumers. It fits nicely into the " tradwife" aesthetic, personified by Ballerina Farm influencer Hannah Neeleman, who feeds her children raw milk on Tiktok for millions of viewers. Yet, like the rest of the aesthetic, the mainstreaming of raw dairy relies on consumers forgetting our history—in this case, a history in which kids got sick from raw milk. The history of children's health in the U.S. reveals an important truth. The U.S. government adopted a robust apparatus for regulating and monitoring the milk supply after an epidemic killed thousands of kids at the turn of the 20th century. This history offers a grim warning about what a future without milk regulation could hold for America's children. Nineteenth-century Americans recognized the dangers of an unregulated dairy industry. In 1843, the domestic writer Catharine Beecher warned parents that 'diseased' milk was 'the cause of extensive mortality among young children.' Yet, even after the French microbiologist Louis Pasteur patented the technology of pasteurization, or heating liquids to kill microorganisms, in 1865, Americans largely continued to consume raw milk for several more decades. They did so despite increasing fears about the dairy industry, driven by the way young children were consuming an increasingly dairy-centric diet. As America urbanized in the late 19th century, many mothers moved away from families who could have supported them in breastfeeding, while also working at Gilded Age jobs like textile factories without labor protections. The technologies of pumping and refrigeration, so essential to balancing work and breastfeeding today, were not yet widely available. This combination of barriers to breastfeeding proved insurmountable for many mothers. Bad advice from their pediatricians compounded the situation. At the time, pediatrics was a new specialty trying to prove its worth, and practitioners mistakenly believed in sticking to a strict schedule for breastfeeding, which actually limited breastmilk supply. Hampered by this erroneous guidance, health authorities and the American public began to believe that women were physically incapable of producing enough breastmilk. The result of both inadequate support for new mothers and poor medical advice was that more and more mothers bottle-fed their babies cow's milk. Young children drank lots of milk, too. Medical authorities like the pediatrician Luther Emmett Holt, whose 1894 The Care and Feeding of Children would become the most popular parenting manual of the early 20th century, advised parents to feed their toddlers milk at every meal. But for kids at the turn of the century, milk came with dire risks. Amid the unbridled capitalism of the Gilded Age, the milk supply was a nightmare of corruption and contamination. On the farm, poor sanitation enabled cows and dairy workers to introduce tuberculosis, typhoid, and other pathogens into milk. Farmers or middlemen also frequently adulterated milk, watering it down to stretch supplies—with impure water likely to introduce further pathogens—or adding toxic substances, like formaldehyde or chalk, meant to conceal spoilage or make milk appear whiter. The milk was then shipped in open, unrefrigerated containers no matter the weather, vulnerable to even more contamination and spoilage. This poisoned milk threatened America's most vulnerable consumers: young children. Infant mortality skyrocketed in the second half of the 19th century, up to 20% nationally and closer to 30% in urban centers. Tens of thousands of babies died every year of gastroenteritis known as 'the summer complaint,' an epidemic of diarrhea that worsened in the warmer months. Gastrointestinal infections were the third leading cause of death across all ages, but particularly impacted small children's fragile immune systems. Parents, many mourning dead children, pushed for lawmakers to clean up the milk supply. They joined a movement of Americans calling for government regulation of the food industry. Progressive Era reformers chronicled the lax food safety and labor conditions that put Americans at risk. In 1902, a Department of Agriculture chemist named Harvey Wiley launched a brilliant but dangerous public relations campaign dubbed ' The Poison Squad ' dosing human test subjects with food additives like formaldehyde and chronicling their alarming effects on the body. In his famous 1905 novel The Jungle, the journalist Upton Sinclair exposed the horrors of meatpacking plants and the threat they posed to Americans. This activism prodded state and federal authorities to enact a flurry of public health legislation. In 1906, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, leading to the creation of the FDA. In 1910, New York State mandated the pasteurization of all milk sold for human consumption. As an extra layer of oversight, public health authorities began testing cows for diseases like tuberculosis, to ensure that milk remained safe for American consumers. Public health historians credit the cleanup of the milk supply as one of the major drivers of the dramatic decrease in child mortality over the course of the 20th century. Within two generations of the pasteurization mandates, 'the summer complaint' had become a memory, so much so that Benjamin Spock, the pediatrician whose parenting advice defined childcare in mid-20th-century America, had to explain its history to the parents of Baby Boomers. In the 1964 edition of his bestseller Baby and Child Care, Spock described the terror of early 20th century doctors and parents who watched infants suffer 'serious intestinal infections that afflicted tens of thousands of babies yearly.' Spock confidently asserted that pasteurization had made such suffering a thing of the past. Yet as Kennedy's attacks on dairy regulation illustrate, the memory of the infant mortality crisis has receded too far into the past. Unlike their turn-of-the-20th century forebears, most 21st century parents will never know the agony of losing a child, as infant mortality rates have fallen below 1%. Many Americans are unaware that government regulation of industry helped bring us these precious gains in children's health, by keeping tuberculosis, and yes, bird flu out of the milk people drink. If this important regulatory work is undone, Kennedy's calls to 'Make America Healthy Again' could bring back an infant mortality crisis previous generations of Americans thought they had overcome. Carla Cevasco is associate professor of American studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. She is writing a book on the history of feeding children in the U.S.
