diff --git a/lib/easy.c b/lib/easy.c
index 7ea1ce1f63..e6bda9bc8b 100644
--- a/lib/easy.c
+++ b/lib/easy.c
@@ -742,7 +742,6 @@ static CURLcode easy_perform(struct Curl_easy *data, bool events)
     multi = Curl_multi_handle(1, 3, 7);
     if(!multi)
       return CURLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY;
-    data->multi_easy = multi;
   }
 
   if(multi->in_callback)
@@ -751,15 +750,18 @@ static CURLcode easy_perform(struct Curl_easy *data, bool events)
   /* Copy the MAXCONNECTS option to the multi handle */
   curl_multi_setopt(multi, CURLMOPT_MAXCONNECTS, (long)data->set.maxconnects);
 
+  data->multi_easy = NULL; /* pretend it does not exist */
   mcode = curl_multi_add_handle(multi, data);
   if(mcode) {
     curl_multi_cleanup(multi);
-    data->multi_easy = NULL;
     if(mcode == CURLM_OUT_OF_MEMORY)
       return CURLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY;
     return CURLE_FAILED_INIT;
   }
 
+  /* assign this after curl_multi_add_handle() */
+  data->multi_easy = multi;
+
   sigpipe_ignore(data, &pipe_st);
 
   /* run the transfer */
diff --git a/lib/multi.c b/lib/multi.c
index c6869a3155..e0e871fe67 100644
--- a/lib/multi.c
+++ b/lib/multi.c
@@ -530,6 +530,13 @@ CURLMcode curl_multi_add_handle(struct Curl_multi *multi,
     multi->dead = FALSE;
   }
 
+  if(data->multi_easy) {
+    /* if this easy handle was previously used for curl_easy_perform(), there
+       is a private multi handle here that we can kill */
+    curl_multi_cleanup(data->multi_easy);
+    data->multi_easy = NULL;
+  }
+
   /* Initialize timeout list for this handle */
   Curl_llist_init(&data->state.timeoutlist, NULL);