Viral Sensation Demps Gets All Kinds of Rowdy in Music Video for 'If You Were a Country Girl': Watch (Exclusive)

Demps doesn’t much care what you think of her.

"People do not like happy people," the 30-year-old viral sensation, born Katie Dempsey, tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. "Having a platform and being a mother and showing that you can have a social life and balance motherhood and career and all that … people hate that. I get a lot of hate just from being happy."

And happy she is these days, as the viral phenom finds herself enjoying all life has to offer her, including the love of boyfriend Phil Messina, the love of her 8-year-old daughter Lily Lynn and the love of millions of followers who can’t seem to get enough of her somewhat peculiar ways and badass songs, such as the HARDY co-penned "If You Were a Country Girl."

"[The song] is about having a man break your heart, and you’re not going to stand for it," Demps says of The Chicks-esque anthem whose music video (filmed and directed by Micah Pringle) premieres exclusively on PEOPLE. "I will never let a man walk all over me again."

But there is more to that story.

Demps grew up on a strawberry field in a run-down trailer situated about an hour outside of Tampa, in a little Florida town called Plant City. "I was always the entertainer of the family,” she says. "I would always reenact movies and put on concerts for my family. I’d make tickets to give them to come to my show."

She grew up on rock and roll thanks to her father, while her mother much preferred a little Tanya Tucker. And for Demps, she loved Motown. It was this shared love of music that remained one of the relatively few bonds between the three.

"I've been a divorce kid my whole life," Demps explains. "My mom is on her third marriage and my father is on his fourth. I didn't have a stable home. It was very non-functional."

It’s this rocky foundation that led Demps to have some shaky years. "I was into bad things as a teenager, skipping school and not really caring what others think," Demps remembers. "I was always an outcast in every school that I went to. I would get in trouble, I would get kicked out, and I would go to another school. When you don’t have a functional household, you lash out. You're just trying to find your place."

Demps says she thought she began to discover that place after high school, when she moved from Tennessee to Pennsylvania, became a licensed cosmetologist and got a gig waitressing at Buffalo Wild Wings. 

"And that's how I met my daughter's father," she says. "I got pregnant the summer of 2015. It was a very toxic relationship that I was in with her father. I'm a survivor of domestic abuse and domestic violence. I knew that this life was not going to be meant for my daughter."

Soon, Demps returned to Tennessee and slept on her mama's couch for a little bit, until she got up and got to work. "I was everything from a bail bondsman to helping people get out of their timeshares," she remembers. "I literally faked it until I made it to do anything to keep the lights on in my house."

And while the pandemic halted the world, it couldn’t halt Demps, who used the time to introduce herself to a TikTok audience that couldn’t get enough of her. She began doing karaoke nights with her best friend Priscilla Block. And in June, she released her first single “Bitch on Wine,” written by Nashville heavy hitters Kelsea Ballerini, Nicolle Galyon and Jimmy Robbins.

And then, she found viral stardom.

"This industry moves fast," says Demps, who plans to have a full-length EP out later this year. "You just roll with it. It’s like being on a rollercoaster, and I don't plan on getting off anytime soon!"

She adds with a laugh, "I may look like a city bougie girl now, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl."