Australia’s most famous numerologist is no more.

It may have taken Sussan Ley a decade to correct the record, but the opposition leader has declared the mystical practice was not responsible for her decision to add an “s” to her name – or presumably for the excitement and success she has enjoyed since.

“It was a flippant remark I made to a journalist,” Ley told 3AW radio host Tom Elliott on Friday morning.

“It’s actually not the reason. It was something I did in my rebel teenage years. I went through a punk phase in those years and added the extra ‘s’. People have been fascinated by the numerology angle, but it is actually not correct.”

It certainly sounded correct in 2015, when a profile in the Weekend Australian Magazine quoted Ley describing how she had gone from Susan to Sussan amidst a life far more interesting (she’s been a pilot, a punk and a rouseabout cook) than most politicians experience.

“I read about this numerology theory that if you add the numbers that match the letters in your name you can change your personality,” Ley told the magazine. “I worked out that if you added an ‘s’ I would have an incredibly exciting, interesting life and nothing would ever be boring. It’s that simple. And once I’d added the ‘s’ it was really hard to take it away.”

We tracked down Kate Legge, the journalist and author who wrote the piece, who says she can’t see why Ley would have given a false or flippant answer in a serious political profile.

“She would have been trying to present her best self and I would have been seeking to present the most accurate picture of her as possible,” Legge says. “Why would she have misrepresented such a simple thing? Was she trying to sound more colourful? And why wait so long to correct the record?

“This was a magazine story and we had plenty of time to correct and massage any mistakes and misunderstandings. I’m surprised by her retrospective admission, but she’s now opposition leader, and congratulations to her, which probably requires cleaning up her backstory.