diff --git a/kvui.py b/kvui.py
index 500203a8..1409e2dc 100644
--- a/kvui.py
+++ b/kvui.py
@@ -836,6 +836,10 @@ class KivyJSONtoTextParser(JSONtoTextParser):
         return self._handle_text(node)
 
     def _handle_text(self, node: JSONMessagePart):
+        # All other text goes through _handle_color, and we don't want to escape markup twice,
+        # or mess up text that already has intentional markup applied to it
+        if node.get("type", "text") == "text":
+            node["text"] = escape_markup(node["text"])
         for ref in node.get("refs", []):
             node["text"] = f"[ref={self.ref_count}|{ref}]{node['text']}[/ref]"
             self.ref_count += 1