Word creating merged cells that does not exist when pasted from Excel

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I have an issue where Word creates a merged cell from data pasted from excel that does not exist.

Here is how it looks in excel

[TABLE="width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]data in column A row 1[/TD]
[TD]data in column B row 1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]data in column A row 2[/TD]
[TD]data in column B row 2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]data in column A row 3[/TD]
[TD]data in column B row 3[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Here is how it appears when pasted into Word (all in 1 table, shown as separate tables)
[TABLE="width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]data in column A row 1[/TD]
[TD]data in column B row 1[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

[TABLE="width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]data in column A row 2[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

[TABLE="width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]data in column A row 3[/TD]
[TD]data in column B row 3[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

****** id="cke_pastebin" style="position: absolute; top: 167.088px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden; left: -1000px;">[TABLE="width: 500"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]data in column 2[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]
</body>This just started happening last week, which including an office update to 365.
I cannot find any issue with the excel file (cell formatting, confirmed that cells are not merged)
Issue is not resolved by pasting into new Word file
Issue does not exist in Wordpad
No issues pasting from excel to excel

I guess this is more of Word question than excel, but I wanted to ask in case anyone else has come across the issue and was able to identify a solution. For now I am pasting into Wordpad first and then into Word.

 

[Country_Calc]

Sorry for posting this. While I could not identify the actual cause, the issue was fixed by deleting all registry keys for older versions of office and rebooting in case anyone else comes across.