diff --git a/libavutil/mem.c b/libavutil/mem.c
index 0fe9f5422a..3769da7d21 100644
--- a/libavutil/mem.c
+++ b/libavutil/mem.c
@@ -68,8 +68,6 @@ void *av_malloc(size_t size)
     long diff;
 #endif
 
-    assert(size);
-
     /* let's disallow possible ambiguous cases */
     if (size > (INT_MAX-32) || !size)
         return NULL;