diff --git a/src/wp-includes/formatting.php b/src/wp-includes/formatting.php
index bcdaec423d..54d12c6398 100644
--- a/src/wp-includes/formatting.php
+++ b/src/wp-includes/formatting.php
@@ -5113,7 +5113,11 @@ function wp_encode_emoji( $content ) {
 	$emoji = _wp_emoji_list( 'partials' );
 
 	foreach ( $emoji as $emojum ) {
-		$emoji_char = html_entity_decode( $emojum );
+		if ( version_compare( phpversion(), '5.4', '<' ) ) {
+			$emoji_char = html_entity_decode( $emojum, ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8' );
+		} else {
+			$emoji_char = html_entity_decode( $emojum );
+		}
 		if ( false !== strpos( $content, $emoji_char ) ) {
 			$content = preg_replace( "/$emoji_char/", $emojum, $content );
 		}
@@ -5151,7 +5155,11 @@ function wp_staticize_emoji( $text ) {
 	$possible_emoji = array();
 	foreach( $emoji as $emojum ) {
 		if ( false !== strpos( $text, $emojum ) ) {
-			$possible_emoji[ $emojum ] = html_entity_decode( $emojum );
+			if ( version_compare( phpversion(), '5.4', '<' ) ) {
+				$possible_emoji[ $emojum ] = html_entity_decode( $emojum, ENT_COMPAT, 'UTF-8' );
+			} else {
+				$possible_emoji[ $emojum ] = html_entity_decode( $emojum );
+			}
 		}
 	}
 
diff --git a/tests/phpunit/tests/formatting/Emoji.php b/tests/phpunit/tests/formatting/Emoji.php
index 6bc16db592..d508ac337c 100644
--- a/tests/phpunit/tests/formatting/Emoji.php
+++ b/tests/phpunit/tests/formatting/Emoji.php
@@ -122,26 +122,20 @@ class Tests_Formatting_Emoji extends WP_UnitTestCase {
 			array(
 				// Simple emoji
 				'🙂',
-				'<img src="' . $this->png_cdn . '1f642.png" alt="" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />',
+				'<img src="' . $this->png_cdn . '1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />',
 			),
 			array(
 				// Skin tone, gender, ZWJ, emoji selector
 				'👮🏼‍♀️',
-				'<img src="' . $this->png_cdn . '1f46e-1f3fc-200d-2640-fe0f.png" alt="" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />',
+				'<img src="' . $this->png_cdn . '1f46e-1f3fc-200d-2640-fe0f.png" alt="👮🏼‍♀️" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />',
 			),
 			array(
 				// Unicode 10
 				'🧚',
-				'<img src="' . $this->png_cdn . '1f9da.png" alt="" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />',
+				'<img src="' . $this->png_cdn . '1f9da.png" alt="🧚" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" />',
 			),
 		);
 
-		// Older versions of PHP don't html_entity_decode() emoji, so we need to make sure they're testing in the expected form.
-		foreach ( $data as $key => $datum ) {
-			$emoji = html_entity_decode( wp_encode_emoji( $datum[0] ) );
-			$data[ $key ][1] = str_replace( 'alt=""', 'alt="' . $emoji . '"', $datum[1] );
-		}
-
 		return $data;
 	}