diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index bc127e70a1a..50a33315644 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ Core and Builtins
 Library
 -------
 
+- Issue #4373: Corrected a potential reference leak in the pickle module.
+
 - Issue #4382: dbm.dumb did not specify the expected file encoding for opened
   files.
 
diff --git a/Modules/_pickle.c b/Modules/_pickle.c
index c1facd83813..a0810b99a9f 100644
--- a/Modules/_pickle.c
+++ b/Modules/_pickle.c
@@ -486,11 +486,13 @@ unpickler_read(UnpicklerObject *self, char **s, Py_ssize_t n)
         PyErr_SetString(PyExc_ValueError,
                         "read() from the underlying stream did not"
                         "return bytes");
+        Py_DECREF(data);
         return -1;
     }
 
     if (PyBytes_GET_SIZE(data) != n) {
         PyErr_SetNone(PyExc_EOFError);
+        Py_DECREF(data);
         return -1;
     }