I figured it out. I was using a bitnami server which i need to go to /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/httpd-app.conf and change AllowOverride None to AllowOverride All to use the .htaccess file. The web is a detail oriented place 🙂
https://docs.bitnami.com/virtual-machine/components/apache/#how-to-configure-htaccess-files
I am sure other users will get stuck if they don’t know this. Hope this helps.
Thanks, have a great day.
