diff --git a/Lib/email/message.py b/Lib/email/message.py
index 41fcc2b9778798..36e4b4a9f0b773 100644
--- a/Lib/email/message.py
+++ b/Lib/email/message.py
@@ -313,6 +313,8 @@ def get_payload(self, i=None, decode=False):
                 # If it does happen, turn the string into bytes in a way
                 # guaranteed not to fail.
                 bpayload = payload.encode('raw-unicode-escape')
+        else:
+            bpayload = payload
         if cte == 'quoted-printable':
             return quopri.decodestring(bpayload)
         elif cte == 'base64':
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_email/test_message.py b/Lib/test/test_email/test_message.py
index 23c39775a8b2e5..c116a7011f60d3 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_email/test_message.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_email/test_message.py
@@ -1055,6 +1055,13 @@ def test_get_body_malformed(self):
         # AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'is_attachment'
         m.get_body()
 
+    def test_get_bytes_payload_with_quoted_printable_encoding(self):
+        payload = memoryview(b'Some payload')
+        m = self._make_message()
+        m.add_header('Content-Transfer-Encoding', 'quoted-printable')
+        m.set_payload(payload)
+        self.assertEqual(m.get_payload(decode=True), payload)
+
 
 class TestMIMEPart(TestEmailMessageBase, TestEmailBase):
     # Doing the full test run here may seem a bit redundant, since the two
diff --git a/Misc/ACKS b/Misc/ACKS
index d1490e1e46ccfd..817b21259774df 100644
--- a/Misc/ACKS
+++ b/Misc/ACKS
@@ -1055,6 +1055,7 @@ Alexander Lakeev
 David Lam
 Thomas Lamb
 Valerie Lambert
+Kliment Lamonov
 Peter Lamut
 Jean-Baptiste "Jiba" Lamy
 Ronan Lamy
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-06-28-11-32-57.gh-issue-134759.AjjKcG.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-06-28-11-32-57.gh-issue-134759.AjjKcG.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000000..79b85320926954
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2025-06-28-11-32-57.gh-issue-134759.AjjKcG.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Fix :exc:`UnboundLocalError` in :func:`email.message.Message.get_payload` when
+the payload to decode is a :class:`bytes` object. Patch by Kliment Lamonov.