diff --git a/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb b/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb
index ed8c1cd09f8..e714923c4d8 100644
--- a/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb
+++ b/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ module Gitlab
 
         encoding = body.encoding
 
-        body = EmailReplyTrimmer.trim(body)
+        body = EmailReplyTrimmer.trim(body) or return ""
 
         # [jneen] not using /\s+$/ here because that deletes empty lines
         body = body.gsub(/[ \t]$/, '')