diff --git a/independent-projects/resteasy-reactive/client/runtime/src/main/java/org/jboss/resteasy/reactive/client/handlers/ClientSendRequestHandler.java b/independent-projects/resteasy-reactive/client/runtime/src/main/java/org/jboss/resteasy/reactive/client/handlers/ClientSendRequestHandler.java
index ea066ae352e12..5ba6fd50d5d77 100644
--- a/independent-projects/resteasy-reactive/client/runtime/src/main/java/org/jboss/resteasy/reactive/client/handlers/ClientSendRequestHandler.java
+++ b/independent-projects/resteasy-reactive/client/runtime/src/main/java/org/jboss/resteasy/reactive/client/handlers/ClientSendRequestHandler.java
@@ -1,6 +1,5 @@
 package org.jboss.resteasy.reactive.client.handlers;
 
-import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
@@ -41,6 +40,7 @@
 import org.jboss.resteasy.reactive.common.core.Serialisers;
 import org.jboss.resteasy.reactive.common.util.MultivaluedTreeMap;
 
+import io.netty.buffer.ByteBufInputStream;
 import io.netty.handler.codec.DecoderException;
 import io.netty.handler.codec.http.HttpHeaderValues;
 import io.netty.handler.codec.http.LastHttpContent;
@@ -361,7 +361,7 @@ public void handle(AsyncResult<Buffer> ar) {
                                         try {
                                             if (buffer.length() > 0) {
                                                 requestContext.setResponseEntityStream(
-                                                        new ByteArrayInputStream(buffer.getBytes()));
+                                                        new ByteBufInputStream(buffer.getByteBuf()));
                                             } else {
                                                 requestContext.setResponseEntityStream(null);
                                             }