diff --git a/celery/backends/database/session.py b/celery/backends/database/session.py
index 783190d757..23a205640c 100644
--- a/celery/backends/database/session.py
+++ b/celery/backends/database/session.py
@@ -17,6 +17,8 @@
 
 __all__ = ('SessionManager',)
 
+PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES = 10
+
 
 def _after_fork_cleanup_session(session):
     session._after_fork()
@@ -62,13 +64,12 @@ def prepare_models(self, engine):
             # create them, which is a race condition. If it raises an error
             # in one iteration, the next may pass all the existence checks
             # and the call will succeed.
-            max_retries = 10
             retries = 0
             while True:
                 try:
                     ResultModelBase.metadata.create_all(engine)
                 except DatabaseError:
-                    if retries < max_retries:
+                    if retries < PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES:
                         sleep_amount_ms = get_exponential_backoff_interval(
                             10, retries, 1000, True
                         )
diff --git a/t/unit/backends/test_database.py b/t/unit/backends/test_database.py
index 5cb6741fd3..2e311d6dc5 100644
--- a/t/unit/backends/test_database.py
+++ b/t/unit/backends/test_database.py
@@ -14,13 +14,15 @@
     import sqlalchemy  # noqa
 except ImportError:
     DatabaseBackend = Task = TaskSet = retry = None  # noqa
-    SessionManager = session_cleanup = None  # noqa
+    SessionManager = ResultModelBase = session_cleanup = None  # noqa
 else:
     from celery.backends.database import (
         DatabaseBackend, retry, session_cleanup,
     )
     from celery.backends.database import session
-    from celery.backends.database.session import SessionManager
+    from celery.backends.database.session import (
+        PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES, ResultModelBase, SessionManager
+    )
     from celery.backends.database.models import Task, TaskSet
 
 
@@ -411,3 +413,28 @@ def test_coverage_madness(self):
             SessionManager()
         finally:
             session.register_after_fork = prev
+
+    @patch('celery.backends.database.session.create_engine')
+    def test_prepare_models_terminates(self, create_engine):
+        """SessionManager.prepare_models has retry logic because the creation
+        of database tables by multiple workers is racy. This test patches
+        the used method to always raise, so we can verify that it does
+        eventually terminate.
+        """
+        from sqlalchemy.dialects.sqlite import dialect
+        from sqlalchemy.exc import DatabaseError
+
+        sqlite = dialect.dbapi()
+        manager = SessionManager()
+        engine = manager.get_engine('dburi')
+
+        def raise_err(bind):
+            raise DatabaseError("", "", [], sqlite.DatabaseError)
+
+        patch_create_all = patch.object(
+            ResultModelBase.metadata, 'create_all', side_effect=raise_err)
+
+        with pytest.raises(DatabaseError), patch_create_all as mock_create_all:
+            manager.prepare_models(engine)
+
+        assert mock_create_all.call_count == PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES + 1