ERROR Found option without preceding group in config file /etc/my.cnf at line 1. ERROR Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted

Question

I am getting this error when i run mysql -uroot after installing mysql through brew install mysql

mysql: [ERROR] Found option without preceding group in config file /etc/my.cnf at line 1. mysql: [ERROR] Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted!

My "my.cnf" looks like this:

# Default Homebrew MySQL server config 
[mysqld]
# Only allow connections from localhost
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
mysqlx-bind-address = 127.0.0.1

I tried every solution online and nothing worked.

1. I've added [mysqld] in front of the file.
2. I've moved the commented lines.
3. I've completely uninstalled mysql using the steps here: https://gist.github.com/vitorbritto/0555879fe4414d18569d and reinstalled it.

I also tried changing the encoding of my my.cnf file from binary to ASCII but it did not change after i run this:

file -I /etc/my.cnf
/etc/my.cnf: application/x-mach-binary; charset=binary

Maybe that's the issue i'm not sure.

Any modification I try, I keep getting the same error mentioned above.

I'm running on a macOS, Big Sur, version 11.6

Please do help.