diff --git a/t3lib/class.t3lib_div.php b/t3lib/class.t3lib_div.php
index 925de8c..6b561c8 100644
--- a/t3lib/class.t3lib_div.php
+++ b/t3lib/class.t3lib_div.php
@@ -2751,6 +2751,10 @@ final class t3lib_div {
 			}
 		}
 
+			// remove UTF-8 Byte Object Marker (BOM)
+		if (substr($content, 0, 3) === pack('CCC', 0xef, 0xbb, 0xbf)) {
+			$content = substr($content, 3);
+		}
 		return $content;
 	}