Horrible Flash hot spot & Banding

[Michelle Grace]

I pulled up this image and the background wall is giving me nightmares. The light source made a huge hot spot and then also produced banding to the left on the back wall and I have tried everything to fix it.

When I just try to replace the background, it looks so fake. Needless to say, I won't make this mistake next time in camera, but I need to fix this image somehow.

I'm attaching the image below - nothing else in the image has been edited yet because I wanted to start with that awful background. 

[Damien Symonds]

Replacing the background is the only safe solution.  May I see your "fake looking" attempt?

[Michelle Grace]

Thanks for the response Damien - I deleted all those attempts though bc they were SO bad.

This morning I went back and photographed the room without the subject and without a flash. And just swapped out the wall and it worked great!

I've definitely learned my lesson about hot spots on the wall now!