diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index be75438d6c..39262bcdfd 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 # Haml Changelog
 
+* Performance/memory improvement in `lib/haml/util.rb` that saves a string allocation [#965](https://github.com/haml/haml/pull/965) (thanks [Dillon Welch](https://github.com/oniofchaos))
 * Add constant for default options in `lib/haml/helpers/action_view_mods.rb` [#966](https://github.com/haml/haml/pull/966) (thanks [Dillon Welch](https://github.com/oniofchaos))
 * Performance/memory usage improvement in `lib/haml/buffer.rb` [#963](https://github.com/haml/haml/pull/963) (thanks [Dillon Welch](https://github.com/oniofchaos))
 
diff --git a/lib/haml/util.rb b/lib/haml/util.rb
index 41ba0de2f0..5bfce0e5c0 100644
--- a/lib/haml/util.rb
+++ b/lib/haml/util.rb
@@ -212,7 +212,7 @@ def unescape_interpolation(str, escape_html = nil)
           else
             scan.scan(/\w+/)
           end
-          content = eval('"' + interpolated + '"')
+          content = eval("\"#{interpolated}\"")
           content.prepend(char) if char == '@' || char == '$'
           content = "Haml::Helpers.html_escape((#{content}))" if escape_html