diff --git a/mm/hugetlb.c b/mm/hugetlb.c
index 417fc5cdb6ee..a7efb350f5d0 100644
--- a/mm/hugetlb.c
+++ b/mm/hugetlb.c
@@ -5963,6 +5963,13 @@ static vm_fault_t hugetlb_wp(struct folio *pagecache_folio,
 	/*
 	 * If no-one else is actually using this page, we're the exclusive
 	 * owner and can reuse this page.
+	 *
+	 * Note that we don't rely on the (safer) folio refcount here, because
+	 * copying the hugetlb folio when there are unexpected (temporary)
+	 * folio references could harm simple fork()+exit() users when
+	 * we run out of free hugetlb folios: we would have to kill processes
+	 * in scenarios that used to work. As a side effect, there can still
+	 * be leaks between processes, for example, with FOLL_GET users.
 	 */
 	if (folio_mapcount(old_folio) == 1 && folio_test_anon(old_folio)) {
 		if (!PageAnonExclusive(&old_folio->page)) {