diff --git a/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/classinitialization/SimulateClassInitializerGraphDecoder.java b/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/classinitialization/SimulateClassInitializerGraphDecoder.java
index 02d2eb09cf05..d757991a844c 100644
--- a/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/classinitialization/SimulateClassInitializerGraphDecoder.java
+++ b/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/classinitialization/SimulateClassInitializerGraphDecoder.java
@@ -346,9 +346,12 @@ protected boolean handleArrayCopy(ImageHeapArray source, int sourcePos, ImageHea
         }
         if (destComponentType.getJavaKind() == JavaKind.Object && !destComponentType.isJavaLangObject() && !sourceComponentType.equals(destComponentType)) {
             for (int i = 0; i < length; i++) {
-                var elementValueType = ((TypedConstant) source.getElement(sourcePos + i)).getType(metaAccess);
-                if (!destComponentType.isAssignableFrom(elementValueType)) {
-                    return false;
+                var elementValue = (JavaConstant) source.getElement(sourcePos + i);
+                if (elementValue.isNonNull()) {
+                    var elementValueType = ((TypedConstant) elementValue).getType(metaAccess);
+                    if (!destComponentType.isAssignableFrom(elementValueType)) {
+                        return false;
+                    }
                 }
             }
         }
diff --git a/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.test/src/com/oracle/svm/test/clinit/TestClassInitialization.java b/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.test/src/com/oracle/svm/test/clinit/TestClassInitialization.java
index ffa6fad54a78..983a46edc6e9 100644
--- a/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.test/src/com/oracle/svm/test/clinit/TestClassInitialization.java
+++ b/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.test/src/com/oracle/svm/test/clinit/TestClassInitialization.java
@@ -612,7 +612,7 @@ public static Object defaultValue(Class<?> clazz) {
         System.arraycopy(shorts, 1, S1, 2, 5);
         System.arraycopy(S1, 3, S1, 5, 5);
 
-        Object[] objects = {"42", "43", "44", "45", "46", "47", "48"};
+        Object[] objects = {"42", null, "44", "45", null, "47", "48"};
         O1 = Arrays.copyOf(objects, 3);
         O2 = Arrays.copyOfRange(objects, 3, 6, String[].class);
     }
@@ -943,8 +943,8 @@ public static void main(String[] args) {
         assertSame(Short.class, BoxingMustBeSimulated.defaultValue(short.class).getClass());
         assertSame(Float.class, BoxingMustBeSimulated.defaultValue(float.class).getClass());
         assertTrue(Arrays.equals((short[]) BoxingMustBeSimulated.S1, new short[]{0, 0, 43, 44, 45, 44, 45, 46, 47, 0, 0, 0}));
-        assertTrue(Arrays.equals((Object[]) BoxingMustBeSimulated.O1, new Object[]{"42", "43", "44"}));
-        assertTrue(Arrays.equals((Object[]) BoxingMustBeSimulated.O2, new String[]{"45", "46", "47"}));
+        assertTrue(Arrays.equals((Object[]) BoxingMustBeSimulated.O1, new Object[]{"42", null, "44"}));
+        assertTrue(Arrays.equals((Object[]) BoxingMustBeSimulated.O2, new String[]{"45", null, "47"}));
 
         /*
          * The unsafe field offset lookup is constant folded at image build time, which also