diff --git a/litellm/utils.py b/litellm/utils.py
index 2a01eadbf77..05e84329e6b 100644
--- a/litellm/utils.py
+++ b/litellm/utils.py
@@ -4367,7 +4367,8 @@ class CustomStreamWrapper:
 
     def handle_huggingface_chunk(self, chunk):
         try:
-            chunk = chunk.decode("utf-8") # DO NOT REMOVE this: This is required for HF inference API + Streaming
+            if type(chunk) != str:
+                chunk = chunk.decode("utf-8") # DO NOT REMOVE this: This is required for HF inference API + Streaming
             text = "" 
             is_finished = False
             finish_reason = ""