Found this in codex:
If your .htaccess file contains errors that bring down your site (“Internal Server Error (500)”), you will need to use FTP or your host’s control panel to delete the rogue .htaccess file.
from:https://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks
So I went in FTP and deleted the .htaccess from the root and uploads. Worked. Can’t explain why, but it worked.
