Whitney Whitney Returns with Empowering Track ‘All That It Is’ After Tragic Voice Loss (Exclusive)

The alt-pop singer is joined by her cat Tuna in the music video, which PEOPLE can exclusively premiere

NEED TO KNOW

• PEOPLE can exclusively premiere Whitney Whitney’s music video and track “All That It Is”

• “I channeled my past heartbreak into her current hurt, and the song was born,” Whitney Whitney’s Whitney Woerz tells PEOPLE

• “All That It Is” marks Whitney Whitney’s return after openly sharing her vocal recovery journey

For Whitney Whitney, her new single “All That It Is” marks the start of a new era.

The alt-pop singer (real name Whitney Woerz) unexpectedly went through the harrowing process of losing her voice two and a half years ago, just as she had signed to Atlantic Records. But gradually, she’s been on the mend.

“Losing my voice was a painful and long process,” Whitney Whitney, 25, tells PEOPLE. “There was nothing that solely caused it. [It happened] out of the blue, but it was a drawn-out downhill slope of me writing and singing in the studio every single day for 12 hours a day.”

According to the rising artist, she thought she was “invincible.”

“Once the pain started, it just got worse and wouldn’t go away. I am still not 100%, but I’m closer than I’ve ever been,” Whitney Whitney explains.

At the time, the Connecticut-born artist had been meeting with several labels, so she hid it from everyone. “Who wants to sign a singer who can’t sing?” she remarks.

But after landing a deal with Atlantic Records, she came clean about her situation. “They’ve stuck by me every step of the way, which I think is extremely rare in the major label system,” she says. Luckily, she had all 16 songs from her album recorded, but she was pushing through the pain.

Whitney Whitney not only underwent months of silence but also vocal surgery. “Even that didn’t cure me,” she says.

Now, she’s back with the devastating power ballad, “All That It Is.” While she admittedly wrote the track while one of her co-writers was going through their own breakup, Whitney Whitney mined her past for inspiration.

“I channeled my past heartbreak into her current hurt, and the song was born,” she says. “I love writing as someone else’s therapist sometimes,” she says.

However, she’s recently been going through the end of a romance. “I haven’t been able to sing about my real breakup yet due to my vocal injuries,” she admits. “This has turned into my breakup anthem.”

Alongside the track, Whitney Whitney shared the music video for her new single, which PEOPLE can exclusively premiere.

Directed by Paige Sara and Claudia Chiossone, the singer-songwriter kicks off the visual cradling her real-life cat Tuna as she takes the stage and delivers an emotive performance.

“I wanted to portray myself pretending to hold it together through all the stages of a major crash out,” says Whitney Whitney. “It’s a live performance to no one but myself, but as if the whole world were watching me and I had to remain unaffected.”

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Having Tuna in the video was especially significant because the cat is her “emotional support before I fully break down.”

Whitney Whitney wanted the visual to showcase her smiling through the pain and eventually breaking down.

“I really wanted it to represent how we try to convince ourselves and others that hard things don’t shatter us,” she says.

Soon, Whitney Whitney will make her festival debut at Lollapalooza in Chicago on July 31, which she can’t be more thrilled about considering the rollercoaster she’s been through.

“It was, and still is, mentally very hard putting out the songs I love so much and not being able to sing them,” she says. “I’ve had to say ‘no’ to so many opportunities and tours that I’ve always dreamed about, but I’ll never give up. I believe more opportunities will come when I’m healed.”

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