‘Rock Bottom Was My Skyrocket’: Priscilla Block on Her Elijah Phillips Romance, New Album and Viral Fame (Exclusive)
The country star shares how she went from eviction to stardom—and found love along the way!
As Priscilla Block returns to the stage for her Things You Didn’t See Tour, the country music beauty who exploded onto the scene via TikTok in 2020 talks to Woman’s World about her viral trajectory to fame and releasing her sophomore album at 30.
Having brought big energy to her debut album, Welcome to the Block Party, and confidently poked fun at her body-image struggles with early TikTok hits like “Thick Thighs,” here Block reflects on slowing down and bringing depth to the conversation with her recent, more poignant singles, “Couldn’t Care Less” and “Things You Didn’t See.”
Plus, Block gets candid about how her beau, Elijah Phillips, has played into her success—from her breakout viral hit “Just About Over You” to making their relationship red-carpet official at this fall’s CMA Awards.
‘It was my rock bottom, but it was also like my skyrocket’
When a 17-year-old Priscilla Block moved to Nashville with $50 in her pocket in 2014, she didn’t know a soul. With a dream in her heart, she started playing the bars and building a following on social media, but in 2020, she found herself living in a shack.
“It was my rock bottom, but it was also like my skyrocket,” she recounts. “I had just gotten evicted because I was four months behind on my rent. My life was falling apart, so I called one of my really good friends and was just like, ‘I need something.’”
“That was the day that I wrote the song, ‘Just About Over You,’ and that song is what completely changed my life,” she continues. “I’d spent so many years in Nashville grinding… but that was when the grinding really started.”
‘Fans embraced going off the deep end, wild, party Priscilla’
After signing her first record deal, wearing shoes that were literally duct taped together, the social media sensation hit the ground running.
“I had just blown up online, and I put my album out really fast,” she recalls. “I was writing songs and recording an album during a pandemic. It was crazy!
“What I’m thankful for in the way that I was discovered is that I was being real and authentic with people,” she adds. “‘Thick Thighs’ was just me being me. Fans embraced going off the deep end, wild, party Priscilla. They saw me as this girl that’s fun, loud, with a big personality.”
‘Seeing how people have connected with this album has been amazing!’
While Block was shot happily out of a cannon with her first album, when making Things You Didn’t See, she had time and experience on her side.
“This record was my chance to dive deeper and tell my story to the world,” she says. “There’s still the quintessential Priscilla personality songs like ‘Goodwill to Gucci’ and ‘Cecilia,’ but there’s also a lot of depth on this record with songs like ‘Couldn’t Care Less,’ or ‘Things you Didn’t See.’”
“I still am that ‘what you see is what you get’ girl, but I’m in a different phase of my life,” she adds. “So going out on stage and seeing how people have connected with this album has been amazing!”
Priscilla Block’s ‘Elijah’ is the same guy who crushed her in ‘Just About Over You’
With the release of Things You Didn’t See, Block has also introduced fans to her man, Elijah Phillips—and yes, her muse for the song “Elijah” is the very same ex who inspired her breakout hit years ago!
“‘Just About Over You’ was written about Elijah,” she admits. “We’d dated when we were younger, and it was right person, wrong time. It happened just like in the song. And we ended up rekindling just as my life was changing, so he was like, ‘Priscilla, this is your moment. Go do all the things that you dreamed of!’”
“It’s been cool having him along for the ride, and cool to share our love story on this record,” she adds. “I was a little worried people would realize it was him in the first song and be upset with him. But the response has been an awesome reminder that people love real and raw—and that’s what I want to continue to do in my artistry.”
‘With social media, there’s new people popping up all the time’
Still a self-professed “country fangirl” today, Block has gotten to meet childhood favorites like Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood. She’s also got millions of her own fans—and she’s aware one of them could be the next big thing!
“With social media, there’s new people popping up all the time,” she says. “There’s a lot of hard things that come with being an artist, and the hardest is staying relevant. We are in a world where everyone is onto the next thing. We’re scrolling, and everyone’s attention span is so small.
“I eat, breathe, and sleep country music and I want to do everything,” she continues. “So I’m still trying to figure out the whole balance of not running myself into the ground and being like, ‘I need to post this, this, this, this, and this,’ and ‘I need to be doing this!’”
Who handles Priscilla Block’s social media today?
That balancing act might be easier if Block handed off her relationship with her 2.2M TikTok followers, 555K Instagram followers, and 712K Facebook followers, but that’s not her way.
“I am doing my social media myself, because my socials are the way for my fans from all over the world to feel like they can connect with me,” she says. “It is hard, because there are so many things going on—touring, writing, recording, social media, trying to somehow have a normal life.
“It’s a lot sometimes, but I always try to remember that my worst day could be somebody’s best day or dream!”
Priscilla Block shares Miranda Lambert’s advice on touring
It also helps that Block has found support among the community she’s both crooned and hooted her way into.
“I’ve got a team of people that can help me through any hard time and so many friends I’ve made through the industry I can lean on who understand where I am, because they’ve been there,” she says.
“One night, I was up on stage, and I accidentally said the wrong city,” she offers as an example. “I was so humiliated! But then I got to run into Miranda Lambert and tell her. She was like, ‘Girl, I’ve been there! I never say where I’m at and I don’t talk sports. I just say, How y’all doing?’ That was great advice. Just meeting her was such a full circle moment, and now, I love her—like, really love her!”
Priscilla Block on the Things You Didn’t See tour
As Priscilla Block sets out on the final leg of her Things You Didn’t See tour, the sassy young woman who once sang happily about hating the gym and loving French fries is still living boldly, but she’s also finding ways to make healthier choices.
“I don’t know if it’s just me growing up, but I’m in this chapter of my life where I am really working on bettering myself, across the board,” Block tells Woman’s World. “That first tour, it was all new to me, so I was partying on the road and having so much fun. Now, I can’t be hungover and put on an amazing show four nights in a row!”
“I’m obsessed with feeling good, healthy and strong,” she concludes. “That’s what I chase, now, and it’s setting me up for this next chapter in my career. I’m so excited!”
With the finale of Block’s Things You Didn’t See Tour initially set to go down at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in March, we have those dates above—but take note, it looks like the country sensation is already adding more dates!
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