diff --git a/libavcodec/ass.c b/libavcodec/ass.c
index c5abf15122..ef906f9c4b 100644
--- a/libavcodec/ass.c
+++ b/libavcodec/ass.c
@@ -181,10 +181,14 @@ void ff_ass_bprint_text_event(AVBPrint *buf, const char *p, int size,
         if (linebreaks && strchr(linebreaks, *p)) {
             av_bprintf(buf, "\\N");
 
-        /* standard ASS escaping so random characters don't get mis-interpreted
-         * as ASS */
-        } else if (!keep_ass_markup && strchr("{}", *p)) {
-            av_bprintf(buf, "\\%c", *p);
+        /* cancel curly brackets to avoid bogus override tag blocks
+         * hiding text. Standard ASS has no character escapes,
+         * though (only) libass provides \{ and \}.
+         * Unpaired closing brackets don't need escaping at all though and
+         * to make the situation less bad in standard ASS insert an empty block
+         */
+        } else if (!keep_ass_markup && *p == '{') {
+            av_bprintf(buf, "\\{{}");
 
         /* append word-joiner U+2060 as UTF-8 to break up sequences like \N */
         } else if (!keep_ass_markup && *p == '\\') {
diff --git a/libavcodec/webvttdec.c b/libavcodec/webvttdec.c
index 6e55bc5499..35bdbe805d 100644
--- a/libavcodec/webvttdec.c
+++ b/libavcodec/webvttdec.c
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ static const struct {
     {"<i>", "{\\i1}"}, {"</i>", "{\\i0}"},
     {"<b>", "{\\b1}"}, {"</b>", "{\\b0}"},
     {"<u>", "{\\u1}"}, {"</u>", "{\\u0}"},
-    {"{", "\\{"}, {"}", "\\}"}, {"\\", "\\\xe2\x81\xa0"}, // escape to avoid ASS markup conflicts
+    {"{", "\\{{}"}, {"\\", "\\\xe2\x81\xa0"}, // escape to avoid ASS markup conflicts
     {"&gt;", ">"}, {"&lt;", "<"},
     {"&lrm;", "\xe2\x80\x8e"}, {"&rlm;", "\xe2\x80\x8f"},
     {"&amp;", "&"}, {"&nbsp;", "\\h"},
diff --git a/tests/ref/fate/sub-webvtt b/tests/ref/fate/sub-webvtt
index ea587b327c..fae50607fb 100644
--- a/tests/ref/fate/sub-webvtt
+++ b/tests/ref/fate/sub-webvtt
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ Dialogue: 0,0:00:22.00,0:00:24.00,Default,,0,0,0,,at the AMNH.
 Dialogue: 0,0:00:24.00,0:00:26.00,Default,,0,0,0,,Thank you for walking down here.
 Dialogue: 0,0:00:27.00,0:00:30.00,Default,,0,0,0,,And I want to do a follow-up on the last conversation we did.\Nmultiple lines\Nagain
 Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.00,0:00:31.50,Default,,0,0,0,,When we e-mailed—
-Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.50,0:00:32.50,Default,,0,0,0,,Didn't we {\b1}talk {\i1}about\N{\i0} enough{\b0} in that conversation? \{I'm not an ASS comment\}
+Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.50,0:00:32.50,Default,,0,0,0,,Didn't we {\b1}talk {\i1}about\N{\i0} enough{\b0} in that conversation? \{{}I'm not an ASS comment}
 Dialogue: 0,0:00:32.00,0:00:35.50,Default,,0,0,0,,No! No no no no; 'cos 'cos obviously 'cos
 Dialogue: 0,0:00:32.50,0:00:33.50,Default,,0,0,0,,{\i1}Laughs{\i0}
 Dialogue: 0,0:00:35.50,0:00:38.00,Default,,0,0,0,,You know I'm so excited my glasses are falling off here.