diff --git a/wp-includes/formatting.php b/wp-includes/formatting.php
index f430a5767a..ba573908ef 100644
--- a/wp-includes/formatting.php
+++ b/wp-includes/formatting.php
@@ -751,13 +751,24 @@ function _wp_specialchars( $string, $quote_style = ENT_NOQUOTES, $charset = fals
 		$quote_style = ENT_NOQUOTES;
 	}
 
-	if ( ! $double_encode ) {
-		// Guarantee every &entity; is valid, convert &garbage; into &garbage;
-		// This is required for PHP < 5.4.0 because ENT_HTML401 flag is unavailable.
-		$string = wp_kses_normalize_entities( $string );
-	}
+	// Handle double encoding ourselves
+	if ( $double_encode ) {
+		$string = @htmlspecialchars( $string, $quote_style, $charset );
+	} else {
+		// Decode &amp; into &
+		$string = wp_specialchars_decode( $string, $_quote_style );
 
-	$string = @htmlspecialchars( $string, $quote_style, $charset, $double_encode );
+		// Guarantee every &entity; is valid or re-encode the &
+		$string = wp_kses_normalize_entities( $string );
+
+		// Now re-encode everything except &entity;
+		$string = preg_split( '/(&#?x?[0-9a-z]+;)/i', $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE );
+
+		for ( $i = 0, $c = count( $string ); $i < $c; $i += 2 ) {
+			$string[$i] = @htmlspecialchars( $string[$i], $quote_style, $charset );
+		}
+		$string = implode( '', $string );
+	}
 
 	// Backwards compatibility
 	if ( 'single' === $_quote_style )
diff --git a/wp-includes/version.php b/wp-includes/version.php
index b0754359d8..7119391adc 100644
--- a/wp-includes/version.php
+++ b/wp-includes/version.php
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
  *
  * @global string $wp_version
  */
-$wp_version = '4.3-beta2-33147';
+$wp_version = '4.3-beta2-33148';
 
 /**
  * Holds the WordPress DB revision, increments when changes are made to the WordPress DB schema.