“I’m nonetheless bleeding a bit,” Hannah Neeleman mentioned.

She was sitting in entrance of a glowing ring gentle in a Las Vegas lodge room, cradling a new child, as a make-up artist hovered shut by, eye-shadow brush in hand.

Two weeks after giving beginning to her eighth little one, Ms. Neeleman, 33, mentioned she now not wanted to put on postpartum diapers. That was handy, since she was about to participate within the swimsuit spherical of the Mrs. World magnificence pageant, an annual competitors for married girls from across the globe.

“Plenty of us have youngsters, and I don’t suppose there’s any disgrace in exhibiting I simply had a child,” Ms. Neeleman mentioned. “Like, I’m not going to have a superbly flat abdomen.” The sweetness group draped a blanket over the toddler, Flora Jo. “She’s breathed in a variety of hair spray,” she joked, “however apart from that she’s stayed protected.”

Ms. Neeleman, a Juilliard-trained former ballerina, is thought extra as a social media star than a pageant queen. On-line, she goes by the title Ballerina Farm, and tens of millions of individuals watch her nearly every day movies depicting her life within the countryside 30 miles from Salt Lake Metropolis.

In 2021, she had simply over 200,000 Instagram followers. By Jan. 21, the day of the pageant, the rely had surged to 9 million, who recurrently tune in to look at her milking her cow, Tulip, and baking sourdough bread in a classic inexperienced range she discovered on Craigslist. The range is called Agnes.

The model — and Ballerina Farm is as a lot a model as it’s a particular person — is healthful and bucolic. Along with being the star of this social media present, Ms. Neeleman lists herself as Ballerina Farm’s founder and chief govt. There isn’t any cake she will be able to’t bake, no variety of kids or livestock she will be able to’t deal with. Her husband, Daniel, makes cameos because the gourmand who fortunately wolfs down no matter she cooks.

Ms. Neeleman is one thing like a Utah model of Joanna Gaines, who runs the Magnolia life-style empire together with her husband, Chip. And just like the Gaineses, whose moments of spousal bickering assist make all of them the extra interesting, Ms. Neeleman lets her viewers see her flaws. “I want you might odor my home proper now — it smells so good,” she joked in a recent video that confirmed her holding a smoking tray of potatoes she had left within the oven too lengthy.

In a polarized time, Ms. Neeleman is concurrently one of the common social media stars within the nation and a lightning rod for criticism. Is she, as her followers would have it, a lady who has made the commendable determination to remain dwelling, elevate the youngsters and assist the household farm? Or is she, as her detractors would argue, somebody who makes use of social media to push for a return to conventional gender roles whereas glossing over the privileges that allowed her to have such a way of life within the first place?

Like many on-line influencers, Ms. Neeleman has monetized her reputation. FedEx sponsored a video final 12 months that confirmed the household preparing for a “last-minute trip” to Hawaii. As a part of the preparations, Ms. Neeleman was express-mailing some Ballerina Farm meat merchandise to their trip home.

Followers can purchase dehydrated packets of her sourdough starter — the starter is called Willa — for $18. Different choices embrace croissants, a gingham apron and a set of enamel dishes. A Ballerina Farm retailer and cafe are within the works, as is a dairy operation, mentioned Ms. Neeleman, who recurrently posts movies that present her ingesting raw, unpasteurized milk.

Her on-line followers, which embrace the actors Jennifer Garner and Hilary Duff, are loyal, vocal and legion. They’re rivaled in quantity by those that attempt to poke holes in her sunny depictions of household life on the farm. Amongst different issues, these critics name her a “tradwife,” web shorthand for conventional spouse.

In Las Vegas, Ms. Neeleman mentioned she was unfamiliar with the time period. “I believe everybody’s mission is completely different. I discover a lot pleasure and satisfaction in being with my youngsters,” she mentioned, including that a lot of her fellow Mrs. World entrants have been docs and attorneys.

Some commenters notice the household’s monetary standing, declaring that Ms. Neeleman’s father-in-law, David Neeleman, is the founding father of a number of airways, together with JetBlue. A couple of additionally declare that Ms. Neeleman should make use of a small little one care military, hidden offscreen. She maintained that she had no nannies, although she mentioned she had different staff, together with farm staff, a private assistant, a babysitter for “date night time” and a trainer to home-school 5 of her kids in a “one-room classroom.”

A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ms. Neeleman sometimes references her religion, however her posts should not overtly spiritual. Neither does she weigh in on political candidates or the problems of the day. Her TikTok and Instagram work is characterised by a can-do angle, presenting a lady who just isn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves and get her fingers soiled on the farm — after which participate in a magnificence pageant.

Ms. Neeleman mentioned she thought, briefly, about not coming into the Mrs. World competitors. She and her husband prayed on it. “He was like, ‘God, let Hannah know what she must do. Both let her know that it’s OK not to go, or give her the power and the therapeutic to get her there,’” she mentioned.

After she had reached her determination, a hairstylist stopped in on the household’s home in Kamas, Utah, to clean up her highlights. An Instagram video confirmed the dye taking place the drain of the identical bathtub the place Ms. Neeleman had labored days earlier, unmedicated and surrounded by her household.

“She simply type of slipped out,” she mentioned of her eighth little one. “She was almost born in the bathroom.”

After the hotel-room make-up session, Ms. Neeleman joined the 37 different Mrs. World contestants in a preliminary spherical. As Buster Poindexter’s “Scorching Scorching Scorching” blasted out of the audio system, they crisscrossed the stage of the Westgate Resort and On line casino in aqua-colored swimsuit and platform heels.

Mrs. Russia and Mrs. Ukraine handed shut to one another. They flashed smiles and locked eyes with the panel of judges within the entrance row, which included a male advertising and marketing govt for a dental firm, the spouse of the lead singer of the band Creed and the 2020 Mrs. World.

The sash worn by Ms. Neeleman was emblazoned with the phrases “Mrs. American.” That allow the judges know she was from the USA and that she had gained final 12 months’s Mrs. American pageant. Additionally onstage, considerably confusingly, was a lady sporting a sash that learn “Mrs. America.” “Mrs. American” and “Mrs. America” are separate pageants, every run by an 86-year-old mogul, Elaine Marmel, who can be in command of the Mrs. World competitors.

After Ms. Neeleman was topped Mrs. American final summer season, she went viral in conservative circles due to the answer she gave onstage to a query about feminine empowerment: “After I maintain that new child child in my arms,” she mentioned, “the sensation of motherhood and bringing them to the earth is essentially the most empowering feeling I’ve ever felt.”

To qualify for Mrs. World, rivals have to be older than 18 and a “pure born feminine,” in keeping with the pageant’s tips. The ladies should not required to be married to a person, Ms. Marmel mentioned, noting a previous lesbian, Mrs. Vermont.

“We’re right down to earth,” Ms. Marmel mentioned. “We’re not the remedy for most cancers. And, you recognize, we don’t ask them to construct a hydrogen bomb. It’s a approach for them to dream. To be any person a bit extra particular.”

Tickets to the two-day occasion price $160. Printed program books offered for $20 on the door. In the course of the competitors, the ladies have been launched with bios that included, amongst tutorial and philanthropic credit (and the enjoyable indisputable fact that Mrs. Eire can leg-press 600 kilos), what number of kids they’ve and what number of years they’ve been married.

Ms. Neeleman went to the occasion together with her older sister, Micka Wright Perry, who helped with the child as Ms. Neeleman shuttled between rehearsals and outings, together with a gaggle go to to an exhibit on Princess Diana. Ms. Perry had a child of her personal in tow, the 4-month-old Goldie, her tenth little one.

Even with the packed schedule, the times in Sin Metropolis gave Ms. Neeleman an opportunity to bond with the household’s latest addition away from the chaos of Ballerina Farm. “We sleep collectively, simply her and I,” she mentioned. “It’s been actually candy.” On Instagram, she posted a photograph of Flora Jo’s umbilical wire stump, which had fallen off within the lodge room.

Whereas a few of Ms. Neeleman’s on-line followers praised her determination to compete, hailing her as a brilliant mother, others questioned whether or not she was setting an unreasonable normal for different postpartum girls, or if it was unwise to take a new child on an airplane and right into a crowded on line casino.

“A pageant just isn’t like I’m operating a marathon,” Ms. Neeleman mentioned. “I’m actually in a chair, getting pampered, principally.”

That pampering does comes at a value. The doorway charge for Mrs. World was round $2,500, in keeping with Lucía Mendieta (that’s, Mrs. Ecuador). There are additionally journey prices, and the contestants should present most of their very own robes and different outfits. Maureen Mink, who competed as Mrs. Navajo Nation, estimated that she had spent $75,000 yearly on pageants. Some contestants mentioned that they had obtained assist by means of sponsors and pageant organizations. The winner of the Mrs. World crown doesn’t obtain a financial prize.

After the swimwear portion, the 38 girls donned glittering attire, many with flowing capes. As they swanned throughout the stage, the emcee knowledgeable the viewers of the causes and organizations they supported. In the course of the course of the pageant, the record included most cancers screenings, girls’s empowerment, psychological well being consciousness, blood donation and the right-wing advocacy group Mothers for Liberty.

“Know your meals — know your farmer!” the emcee declared as Ms. Neeleman appeared in a one-shoulder, champagne-colored costume.

Within the viewers, relations and supporters whooped and cheered. There have been flags and air horns. Ms. Neeleman’s household, together with her mother and father, her husband, and their seven different kids, held indicators within the entrance row.

A key a part of the pageant befell behind closed doorways, when the contestants met with the judges. Ms. Neeleman mentioned that they had requested her if she would be capable to steadiness the duties of a Mrs. World crown-winner together with her busy private life. Along with the brand new child, her father is dying of most cancers.

“Figuring out that the top might be shut for him, after which having this new child child and welcoming this life into our household, it’s simply been so wealthy with emotion,” she mentioned. “I believe that’s what a Mrs. World is. It’s a lady that wears so many hats.”

In the course of the pageant’s costume portion, every girl donned a garment symbolizing her dwelling nation. For a lot of contestants, that meant dressing as an oversize fowl.

Mrs. America and Mrs. American each dressed as eagles. Mrs. Brazil was guised a shiny blue macaw. A thunderbird, a hummingbird, and a stork (full with a plastic child) rounded out the group. In a departure from the avian, Mrs. India opted for a snake costume, with a prepare so lengthy that it knocked over a microphone stand. Regardless of the flub, she went on to win the “Most Unique” costume award.

Tasked with winnowing the sector right down to 17 semifinalists, the judges stuffed out rating sheets for every a part of the competitors. On Sunday, Jan. 21, Ms. Neeleman attended church together with her household. That night, alongside together with her fellow contestants, she returned to the stage for the three-hour remaining spherical.

The viewers had doubled in measurement for the reason that semifinals and now comprised, along with relations, a royal court docket’s value of previous and current magnificence queens in formal put on, many clutching cocktails from the on line casino’s bar. The departing Mrs. World, Sargam Koushal, gave a speech describing the pageant as “giving married girls hope that life doesn’t finish after marriage” to chuckles from the group.

Earlier than the semifinalists have been introduced, Ms. Neeleman and the opposite hopefuls carried out a dance routine to “Viva Las Vegas.” Ms. Neeleman was entrance and heart, the ballerina of Ballerina Farm on full show, as Child Flora Jo lay quiet in her stroller.

Ms. Neeleman made it to the following spherical, however not a lot past that. After her title was not amongst these referred to as to progress to the highest six, Flora Jo started to cry, as if on cue.

Mrs. Germany ended up successful the crown. She was all smiles, with no tears, as she curtsied to the group. The 37 contestants, together with Ms. Neeleman, swarmed the pageant queen in a large, standing hug. Relations and followers stormed the stage to take pictures.

After some time, Ms. Neeleman slipped away from the sequins and selfies. It was time to breastfeed.