diff --git a/lib/commit_ext.rb b/lib/commit_ext.rb
index 91a4c059..0e045911 100644
--- a/lib/commit_ext.rb
+++ b/lib/commit_ext.rb
@@ -3,13 +3,7 @@ module CommitExt
   attr_accessor :refs
 
   def safe_message
-    message.encode("UTF-8",
-                   :invalid => :replace,
-                   :undef => :replace,
-                   :universal_newline => true,
-                   :replace => "")
-  rescue
-    "-- invalid encoding for commit message"
+    message.force_encoding(Encoding::UTF_8)
   end
 
   def created_at