Pretty url problem

[JohnOP]

Im trying to rewrite my urls to look more pretty

 

http://example.com/profile.php?id=username

 

to look like

 

http://example.com/username

 

When testing i can get it too work as http://example.com/username.html

RewriteEngine On 
RewriteRule ^([^/]*).html$ profile.php?id=$1 [L]

 

but when i remove the .html from the rewrite rule, the page works with /username but it doesnt pick up the variable to show the respective profile like it does with the .html, im not sure what the problem is.