diff --git a/lib/nodejs/serializer.js b/lib/nodejs/serializer.js
index 25d2e39727..63e1a24e51 100644
--- a/lib/nodejs/serializer.js
+++ b/lib/nodejs/serializer.js
@@ -259,7 +259,7 @@ class SerializableEvent {
     });
 
     // mutates the object
-    breakCircularDeps(result);
+    breakCircularDeps(result.error);
 
     const pairs = Object.keys(result).map(key => [result, key]);
 
diff --git a/test/integration/fixtures/parallel/non-circular-error.mjs b/test/integration/fixtures/parallel/non-circular-error.mjs
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..251a58b0fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/integration/fixtures/parallel/non-circular-error.mjs
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+import {it} from '../../../../index.js';
+
+it('test', () => {
+  throw new Error('Foo');
+});
diff --git a/test/integration/parallel.spec.js b/test/integration/parallel.spec.js
index 5dc1d07fcd..fad184e24b 100644
--- a/test/integration/parallel.spec.js
+++ b/test/integration/parallel.spec.js
@@ -43,4 +43,19 @@ describe('parallel run', () => {
     assert.strictEqual(result.failures[0].err.message, 'Foo');
     assert.strictEqual(result.failures[0].err.foo.props[0], '[Circular]');
   });
+
+  it('should correctly handle an exception with retries', async () => {
+    const result = await runMochaJSONAsync('parallel/circular-error.mjs', [
+      '--parallel',
+      '--jobs',
+      '2',
+      '--retries',
+      '1',
+      require.resolve('./fixtures/parallel/testworkerid1.mjs')
+    ]);
+    assert.strictEqual(result.stats.failures, 1);
+    assert.strictEqual(result.stats.passes, 1);
+    assert.strictEqual(result.failures[0].err.message, 'Foo');
+    assert.strictEqual(result.failures[0].err.foo.props[0], '[Circular]');
+  });
 });