diff --git a/src/mlpack/methods/ann/layer/nearest_interpolation_impl.hpp b/src/mlpack/methods/ann/layer/nearest_interpolation_impl.hpp
index 159e138ed0..fe7d269123 100644
--- a/src/mlpack/methods/ann/layer/nearest_interpolation_impl.hpp
+++ b/src/mlpack/methods/ann/layer/nearest_interpolation_impl.hpp
@@ -101,6 +101,7 @@ void NearestInterpolation<InputDataType, OutputDataType>::Backward(
   if (output.is_empty())
   {
     output.set_size(inRowSize * inColSize * depth, batchSize);
+    output.zeros();
   }
   else
   {