diff --git a/tornado_openapi3/responses.py b/tornado_openapi3/responses.py
index cdb6e1f..534f246 100644
--- a/tornado_openapi3/responses.py
+++ b/tornado_openapi3/responses.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ class TornadoResponseFactory:
     def create(cls, response: HTTPResponse) -> OpenAPIResponse:
         mimetype = response.headers.get("Content-Type", "text/html")
         return OpenAPIResponse(
-            data=response.body.decode("utf-8"),
+            data=response.body.decode("utf-8") if response.body else "",
             status_code=response.code,
             mimetype=mimetype,
         )