Hailey Whitters' Hard-Earned Breakthrough Single 'Totally Surprised Me'

These days, Hailey Whitters is widely-known for her smash-hit single, “Everything She Ain’t,” a sassy country anthem that has been a long-awaited, hard-earned milestone for the Shueyville, Iowa-born artist.

Whitters, 33, calls “Everything She Ain’t” the “little single that could,” soaring at country radio — which “has been insane” — and resonating widely with country music fans. It’s the last song that was addd to Whitters’ 17-track album Raised, which made its debut last year. Whitters said the project is an intentional body of work with every song “there for a reason,” intended for fans to delve into and listen from top to bottom. Just when she thought she’d finished the record, her producer played Whitters’ recording of the now-hit single to officials at the singer’s record label, and the rest was history, she recalled while recently speaking with iHeartCountry. Whitters said “it’s been really crazy for me to see just the whole life of that song because it was one that I just didn’t even think was gonna be on the record, and then here we are. …the whole thing has kind of totally surprised me.”

Now, Whitters is the reigning Academy of Country Music New Female Artist of the Year and performed on the “biggest stage I’ve ever played” during the annual four-day CMA Fest, at Nissan Stadium in Downtown Nashville, Tennessee. She reflected on those recent moments as she spoke with iHeartCountry on a Zoom call from an event at Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. in Tullahoma, Tennessee, where she performed, soaked up the sunshine and sampled whiskey and bourbon (though she’s also a fan of tequila, a cold beer, and other beverages: “honestly, I don’t discriminate my alcohol”). It was as close to a day off that she’s experienced while working lately, between working on her music and keeping a packed schedule of performance dates.

Whitters is marking milestones that she’s dreamt of as a 10-year-old child, and after about 16 years of working hard to build her career as an artist. Some of it has been “bittersweet.”

“It’s bittersweet, you know?” Whitters said, when asked what it’s like to watch the success of “Everything She Ain’t” after years of working toward thus moment. “It’s crazy because my journey has been like a series of small breaks. It’s never been one big moment and then, ‘woo! It’s off to the races!’ It’s been like, a lot of years of hard work and showing up and continuing to go and get up and do this even when it feels like you’re just getting kicked in the gut, you know? So, I think it makes it very sweet to get to have moments like this where it’s like, I know what it took to get here and I know how hard it is to get here, so I think it can really make me just appreciate these moments all that much more.

“I think that if I look back on little Hailey, who had this dream to get to go do this, those were my dreams,” Whitters continued, reflecting on her ACM Award and her recent performance at Nissan Stadium. “It’s cool to get to know I’ve done those things now, and to get to be proud of how far I’ve come. I think it’s crazy because this industry always has you chasing the next thing and the next goal and all that, but I have to remember, 10-year-old Hailey Whitters, that’s all she ever wanted. And she went out there and she did the dang thing. I’m really, really happy with the fact that I’ve stuck it out all these years and I’ve done the things I promised myself I would do.”

Whitters hints that she’s “really hoping to drop some new music soon.”

Until then, find Raised on iHeartRadio here, and listen to “Everything She Ain’t” again here: