diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
index 1410d66192f77599f6b55fa3e57ec0b63028b2bb..63a3afc7f32b6d20bbdbe49d69ec1b37f0c71afc 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-stat.c
@@ -561,7 +561,8 @@ static int __run_perf_stat(int argc, const char **argv, int run_idx)
 					break;
 			}
 		}
-		wait4(child_pid, &status, 0, &stat_config.ru_data);
+		if (child_pid != -1)
+			wait4(child_pid, &status, 0, &stat_config.ru_data);
 
 		if (workload_exec_errno) {
 			const char *emsg = str_error_r(workload_exec_errno, msg, sizeof(msg));