diff --git a/pkg/distributor/distributor_test.go b/pkg/distributor/distributor_test.go
index ab0f06cf505..b09d93d884c 100644
--- a/pkg/distributor/distributor_test.go
+++ b/pkg/distributor/distributor_test.go
@@ -6847,6 +6847,7 @@ func TestDistributorValidation(t *testing.T) {
 			}},
 			expectedErr: status.New(codes.FailedPrecondition, metadataMetricNameMissingMsgFormat),
 		},
+		// Validation passes for empty exemplar labels, since we just want to skip the exemplars and not fail the time series as a whole.
 		"empty exemplar labels": {
 			metadata: []*mimirpb.MetricMetadata{{MetricFamilyName: "testmetric", Help: "a test metric.", Unit: "", Type: mimirpb.COUNTER}},
 			labels:   [][]mimirpb.LabelAdapter{{{Name: labels.MetricName, Value: "testmetric"}, {Name: "foo", Value: "bar"}}},
@@ -6859,7 +6860,6 @@ func TestDistributorValidation(t *testing.T) {
 				TimestampMs: int64(now),
 				Value:       1,
 			}},
-			expectedErr: status.New(codes.FailedPrecondition, fmt.Sprintf(exemplarEmptyLabelsMsgFormat, now, `testmetric{foo="bar"}`, "{}")),
 		},
 	} {
 		t.Run(name, func(t *testing.T) {