diff --git a/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb b/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb
index 7dedd5ec4aacc889826b9e105204c30e09be7612..8c8dd1b9cef492395cd0d216d2b8d3a9c3200885 100644
--- a/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb
+++ b/lib/gitlab/email/reply_parser.rb
@@ -13,7 +13,9 @@ module Gitlab
 
         encoding = body.encoding
 
-        body = EmailReplyTrimmer.trim(body) or return ""
+        body = EmailReplyTrimmer.trim(body)
+
+        return '' unless body
 
         # not using /\s+$/ here because that deletes empty lines
         body = body.gsub(/[ \t]$/, '')