diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index c72e13623c2d..36ca62a880f4 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -38,7 +38,10 @@
 # The setuptools version of sdist adds a setup.cfg file to the tree.
 # We don't want that, so we simply remove it, and it will fall back to
 # vanilla distutils.
-del setuptools.command.sdist.sdist.make_release_tree
+try:
+    del setuptools.command.sdist.sdist.make_release_tree
+except AttributeError:
+    pass
 
 from distutils.errors import CompileError
 from distutils.dist import Distribution