diff --git a/cmd/zed/zed.d/zed-functions.sh b/cmd/zed/zed.d/zed-functions.sh
index 470739d16..6e00f153b 100644
--- a/cmd/zed/zed.d/zed-functions.sh
+++ b/cmd/zed/zed.d/zed-functions.sh
@@ -283,6 +283,11 @@ zed_notify_email()
         if [ "${ZED_EMAIL_OPTS%@SUBJECT@*}" = "${ZED_EMAIL_OPTS}" ] ; then
             # inject subject header
             printf "Subject: %s\n" "${subject}"
+            # The following empty line is needed to separate the header from the
+            # body of the message. Otherwise programs like sendmail will skip
+            # everything up to the first empty line (or wont send an email at
+            # all) and will still exit with exit code 0
+            printf "\n"
         fi
         # output message
         cat "${pathname}"