Elyse Knowles addresses ‘wallah’ spelling gaffe in new interview with Stellar

Model Elyse Knowles was at the centre of a social media storm after an innocent typo last year. Now, she’s opening up about how she coped.

Instagram influencer Elyse Knowles has finally responded to her infamous spelling gaffe that made global headlines last year.

An innocuous selfie of Knowles captioned “Wallah” (a misspelling of the French word voila), sent trolls into overdrive in December, with the model and expectant mother telling Stellar she was fine with the attention, and even had a chuckle over it herself.

She added that she is baffled by the fact that she is still receiving notifications daily about her failed attempt at the French language.

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Knowles and her baby bump feature in this weekend’s Stellar magazine. Picture: Claudia Smith/ Stellar Magazine.

“I make mistakes all the time (on social media). It’s who I am,” former The Block contestant and model Knowles, 28, told the publication.

“I haven’t been deeply affected by it at all because I spell things wrong all the time. I don’t know. I can’t spell for sh*t! I know that, and I’m OK with that.

“But there’s a global pandemic and the whole of the Australian media is reporting on one word. I’m still getting notifications every day that people are writing about it. But if it gave someone a laugh, then … whatever. I chuckled over it, too.”

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The selfie that started it all. Picture: Instagram.

The post exploded after it was shared by The Fat Jewish. Picture: Instagram.

A quick scroll through the comments section of one of Knowles’ most recent posts reveals hundreds of trolls laying into her spelling mistake, leaving echoes of “wallah” on her page.

The typo was first picked up by Instagram page Celeb Spellcheck — which is dedicated to highlighting the unfortunate typos of Australia’s biggest social media stars — in August.

However, it didn’t go viral until US social media sensation Josh Ostrovsky, a.k.a. The Fat Jewish, shared it with his 10.6 million followers.

Mr Ostrovsky shared a screenshot of Knowles’ typo, and wrote: “Spending an unhealthy amount of time thinking about how this influencer spelled ‘Voila’”

His followers flocked to the Australian model’s Instagram account, leaving comments including: “wallah!”, “Wallahhhhhh”, “Wallah jenna say kwah”, “WaLlAh”, “WALLAH”, “You’re so knowledgeable #wallah forever” and “WALLAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PRAISE THE MOST HIGHHHHHH”.

While Knowles herself has been able to brush off the criticism, her mum wasn’t so forgiving.

“She thought it was bullying,” Knowles explained to Stellar.

She went on to admit that she still isn’t entirely sure how the exclamation is spelt, joking of her unborn baby with husband Josh Barker: “Josh will teach it how to spell!”

Elyse appears on the cover of Stellar magazine this weekend. Picture: Stellar

Knowles and Barker announced they were expecting their first child — due imminently — in September last year.

“And then there were 3,” the Myer ambassador shared with her 870,000 followers in a photo in front of Uluru.

The couple are keeping the sex a surprise.

Elyse and Josh won the 2017 season of The Block, with their five-bedroom Elsternwick home winning them $550,000 after their house sold to comedian Dave Hughes.

Since their Block win Elyse and Josh have relocated from Melbourne to NSW’s celeb enclave of Byron Bay.

Read the full interview with Elyse Knowles in the current issue of Stellar, available in the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Herald Sun, out Sunday January 31.