diff --git a/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/string.py b/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/string.py
index 06b5ac31ca6..6c36c0ee2fd 100644
--- a/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/string.py
+++ b/python/cudf/cudf/core/column/string.py
@@ -4843,6 +4843,7 @@ def character_ngrams(
         result = self._return_or_inplace(lc, retain_index=True)
 
         if isinstance(result, cudf.Series) and not as_list:
+            result = result[result.list.len() > 0] # before exploding, removes those lists which have 0 length
             return result.explode()
         return result