The person behind a popular “tradwife” social media account apologized Monday for misleading followers into thinking the account owner was an ultra-conservative married mother of 14.
“I just want to say that I am sorry for the lies I told and the hurt I caused. I never intended for this account to become as big as it did, and once things started snowballing, I enjoyed the relationships I’d built and didn’t know how to put an end to it,” the person behind the X account “Patriarchy Hannah” wrote.
Just who is “Patriarchy Hannah?” It’s still not entirely clear.
The social media fracas started last week, after internet sleuth Ryan Duff published a lengthy thread on X that dove into the account’s background, pointing out inconsistencies in claims that the “Hannah” character made over the past four years. He said he combed through property records and obituaries, in addition to using reverse image searches, to prove that “Hannah” was not real. Duff did not immediately reply to a request for comment made via X.
His search led him to an Arkansas-based woman who does not appear to have 14 children. It’s also unclear if she is married. Images of a property shared by “Hannah,” and traced by Duff on the real estate site Zillow, appear to belong to a house in Louisiana.
NBC News has not confirmed the identity of the person behind the account and was not immediately able to contact them. A request for comment sent to the “Patriarchy Hannah” account did not receive a response.
“Patriarchy Hannah” is one of many online accounts that have gained some measure of popularity in recent years for embracing what they consider to be traditional women roles, with a heavy emphasis on childbearing and homemaking. The lifestyle has been embraced by some in conservative circles, while receiving criticism in more progressive feminist and left-leaning spaces.
The popularity of some tradwife accounts has also brought with it greater scrutiny, with the well-worn social media dynamic that life in the real world may not be as rosy as it’s portrayed online. Some people who once created tradwife content have since become its most visible critics, and media profiles of tradwife personalities are almost always followed by heated debate.
“Patriarchy Hannah,” who goes by the X handle @harmonizedgrace, was a relatively small figure in this world, having amassed about 27,000 followers on the platform. A discord server, which was used by fans of the account and appeared to be run by the same person running the Hannah account, has been removed. It’s unclear why.
The community around “Hannah,” who joined X in 2021, according to the account page, continued to grow as they pushed traditional beliefs and conservative ideals. The person running the account said they never made significant income from the “Hannah” account.
The “Hannah” account posted frequently about their purported children and her husband “Tony,” who does not appear to be a real person, according to Duff’s research. The “Hannah” character would describe how women should behave and how they should present themselves, including posting about how women “act like having children is an excuse to gain weight and it’s not.” She also posted about how there’s “no space for fat people in the public eye.” She also wrote that if someone’s husband isn’t “capable of violence,” then they “don’t have a husband; you have a wife.”
The “Hannah” account also shared the belief that husbands and wives should not have ideological differences.
“If my husband tells me that something in the bible means something different than I thought, I just accept that he’s right,” one post reads.
Despite the account’s relatively small following (some tradwife personalities have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers), the revelation of its fallacy sent shock waves through conservative corners of social media, some of which had grown to trust and even confide in the “Hannah” character. Many replied to the apology saying it wasn’t enough, and that their trust had been breached.
As part of the apology, the account said that the person running it will not return to X and that they don’t see a point in sorting through what accusations are accurate and which are incorrect.
“The bottom line is that I am not who I presented [myself] to be. I’m not going to be giving my reasons for why I started because I am not looking for sympathy here. It was wrong, and I humbly hope that you all can find it in your hearts to forgive me in the future,” the person running the account posted.
They closed their post by asking that people on X stop “reaching out to my family” and said that their family is “aware of the situation but are very freaked out by people trying to make contact with them.”