[Fume]

I had to make sure to unclip the shift boot since the knob and boot is one piece on my car (6MT), so make sure you check whether or not that's the case with your automatic.

Otherwise, if this is anything like the manual transmission knob, the first time I pulled it off I had to straddle technique that asbrr mentioned so that I can use my leg muscles to pull up. Just pulling up with my bicep strength didn't work for me although maybe that says more about my noodle arm strength...