Broke and ready to quit, Florida singer's TikTok song changed everything
He was broke and living off beans and rice.
It was obvious: Ricky Manning's musical career had taken a wrong turn somewhere.
"I was just out of a publishing deal and honestly had the least amount of money I'd ever had," the singer-songwriter says. "It was a weird time in my life. It was a lot of water, a lot of rice, a lot of beans."
The Cape Coral native had dreamed of being a singer/songwriter since he was a teenager. He'd performed on "The Voice" and "American Idol." He'd scored a few hits, including his solo song "LA Is Lonely" (his audition song on "American Idol") and his 2024 hit with Alexander Stewart, "blame's on me."
Now he was seriously thinking about giving it all up.
"I was debating if it was really worth I," he says. "If I knew when I was 16, 17, 18, the road ahead, I can't really say whether or not I would have kept walking down it. …
"Your life just seems like it's going to be a certain way. And then it starts happening, and it looks nothing like you thought."
Then something magical happened.
Manning, now 31, wrote a heart-wrenching song about a painful breakup with his high-school sweetheart. Then he recorded a stripped-down video performing the song, "Someone Else & Jesus" — just his voice, his acoustic guitar and his wounded heart — and he posted it on TikTok on Jan. 25, 2025.
The next morning, he woke up to 417,000 views on TikTok. By the end of the day, the song had more than a million views on TikTok.
And it just kept going.
TikTok song 'Someone Else & Jesus' goes viral
Now —more than a year later — the song has reached about 7 million views on TikTok (including 4.1 million for that original viral post). Plus another 5 million streams on Spotify.
"It went viral," Manning says. "Thank God for an app like TikTok, just to get eyes on something. It's been a pretty life-changing year."
Just a few months after "Someone Else & Jesus" hit TikTok, Manning landed another publishing deal, this time with Nashville's Electric Feel. The entertainment company has represented Post Malone, Doja Cat and even Taylor Swift .
Since then, Manning has been writing and releasing songs with some well-known singers and songwriters. And he's even getting recognized by fans when he's out and about in Nashville.
"It's maybe slowed down a bit in the last two months, but pretty much every other time I would leave the house, anywhere I was in Nashville, somebody would come up to me and be like, 'Hey man, I just want to say I really love your song,'" he says. "And that's never happened. And that was definitely because of 'Someone Else & Jesus.'"
Writing and recording 'Someone Else & Jesus'
The song wasn't that different from the many other break-up songs Manning has written and posted in his career, he admits. But this one just hit differently.
People connected to the simplicity of the song and the heartbreak that inspired it.
"When you boil it down, (this is) what I've been doing since I was 12 or 13 years old — in my bed, acoustic guitar, writing really personal sad songs," he says. "I've had songs that have been a lot more produced and had a lot more drums and (were) fast paced...
"But to me, it's kind of proof that the thing that I do naturally is the thing that people seem to connect with. ... First and foremost, I love being a storyteller. And I think that's what serves my songs best — that sort of stripped-down light."
It was actually the third time he'd posted a video of himself performing the song on TikTok. But this version also featured some attention-grabbing text: "i dated this girl for 12 years. we broke up two years ago. i wrote this a year ago. she got engaged yesterday."
The song and its caption are 100-percent true, he told The News-Press last year.
"The song really kinda tells what happened," he said. "I got home from hanging out with some friends. I'd had a few drinks. And just as I was gonna open the door to my bedroom, I was like, 'What if my ex is in there?'
"And I played out this whole scene in my under-the-influence head. And I sat there on my bed and just wrote a poem about what it would be like."
Soon after that, he grabbed an acoustic guitar and turned the poem into a song. In "Someone Else & Jesus," he fantasizes that he finds his ex-girlfriend sitting on his bed and telling him she misses him. Then reality crashes in on the chorus: "But I skipped town and you're a stranger now, loving someone else and Jesus."
As for his ex, Manning says he has no idea what she thinks of the song.
"I'm sure she's heard the song," he says. "I'm positive she's heard the song. But no, she's married and happy with her new dude."
Ricky Manning: After 'The Voice' and 'American Idol'
After two decades of ups and downs in the music business, Manning says he's glad to be on the up again.
He's been hammering away on his career since he was a teenager growing up in Cape Coral.
Those musical dreams got a big boost after he appeared on a pair of TV singing competitions. The North Fort Myers High graduate competed on "The Voice" in 2014 and then on "American Idol" in 2018.
He never made it further than the Top 20 on either show, but he did get a lot of national attention. And his original song "LA Is Lonely" — performed for his "Idol" audition — went on to score 4.1 million streams on Spotify.
Manning moved to Los Angeles in 2015 and pursued a career as a songwriter. Then came the break-up, he says. And his decision to leave Los Angeles and try Nashville, instead. He moved there in June 2023.
"(The) breakup … kinda rocked me a bit," he said in 2025. "And I was like, 'You know, maybe get some distance from that.' I was alone for the first time since I was 14. So I was, like, 'I think I can buy a cheap car and drive to Nashville and affect nobody but me.'"
Manning says he loves Nashville and needed the change — both personally and professionally.
Things got rocky there for a while — especially after his former publishing company dissolved in 2024 and left him without representation — but his career prospects have been looking much better over the last year, he says.
What's next for Ricky Manning
Now Manning is planning the next steps in his growing career, including a pair of EPs coming out later this year. One is a solo work, and the other will be all duets.
The first duet — "Same Old Fool," recorded with singer Julia Minichiello — comes out in February. And another song — "DYE," written with songwriters Whakaio Taahi, formerly of Australian rock band Ronight Alive, and Steph Jones, best known for writing the Sabrina Carpenter hit "Espresso" — will likely be released in March.
He and Taahi are also starting a new band called bb floyd, a name based on a longtime family nickname for Manning.
Meanwhile, the popularity of "Someone Else & Jesus" continues to grow. If you count the clean version of the song and another version with California singer-songwriter Dasha — who contributes lyrics showing a feminine perspective on the break-up — Manning says the song has already racked up more Spotify streams than his previous biggest solo hit, "LA Is Lonely."
"I'm just stoked," he says.
He's also glad that he's making money and finding his career path again. No more beans and rice every day.
"The publishing deal basically just means, well, I'm getting paid to be a songwriter," he says. "Which is cool."
Now in a much better place for his career, Manning has a lot of goals, including getting more comfortable performing onstage and just living in this extraordinary moment that his TikTok hit has created for him.
He didn't have to give up his musical career, after all. And he wants to make the most of this new opportunity.
"I want to put a lot of eggs in a lot of different baskets, (and) just have more fun with it," he says. "That's the goal for this year.
"I'm so lucky to have this job. How do I make it just fun? I don't want to have days that I don't look forward to. I just want to wake up and be excited for what I've got."
Charles Runnells covers arts and entertainment for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 or email crunnells@usatodayco.com. Follow or message him on Facebook (@charles.runnells.7), Instagram (@crunnells1) and X (@CharlesRunnells) .
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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Ricky Manning's viral TikTok song saves Florida native's music career
