diff --git a/CONTRIBUTORS.txt b/CONTRIBUTORS.txt
index 748cabf4d0..a29157e1e5 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTORS.txt
+++ b/CONTRIBUTORS.txt
@@ -277,3 +277,4 @@ Kyle Johnson, 2019/09/23
 Dipankar Achinta, 2019/10/24
 Sardorbek Imomaliev, 2020/01/24
 Maksym Shalenyi, 2020/07/30
+Frazer McLean, 2020/09/29
diff --git a/celery/backends/database/session.py b/celery/backends/database/session.py
index 047a9271d9..ca3d683bea 100644
--- a/celery/backends/database/session.py
+++ b/celery/backends/database/session.py
@@ -1,14 +1,21 @@
 """SQLAlchemy session."""
+import time
+
 from kombu.utils.compat import register_after_fork
 from sqlalchemy import create_engine
+from sqlalchemy.exc import DatabaseError
 from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base
 from sqlalchemy.orm import sessionmaker
 from sqlalchemy.pool import NullPool
 
+from celery.utils.time import get_exponential_backoff_interval
+
 ResultModelBase = declarative_base()
 
 __all__ = ('SessionManager',)
 
+PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES = 10
+
 
 def _after_fork_cleanup_session(session):
     session._after_fork()
@@ -50,7 +57,25 @@ def create_session(self, dburi, short_lived_sessions=False, **kwargs):
 
     def prepare_models(self, engine):
         if not self.prepared:
-            ResultModelBase.metadata.create_all(engine)
+            # SQLAlchemy will check if the items exist before trying to
+            # 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.
+            retries = 0
+            while True:
+                try:
+                    ResultModelBase.metadata.create_all(engine)
+                except DatabaseError:
+                    if retries < PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES:
+                        sleep_amount_ms = get_exponential_backoff_interval(
+                            10, retries, 1000, True
+                        )
+                        time.sleep(sleep_amount_ms / 1000)
+                        retries += 1
+                    else:
+                        raise
+                else:
+                    break
             self.prepared = True
 
     def session_factory(self, dburi, **kwargs):
diff --git a/t/unit/backends/test_database.py b/t/unit/backends/test_database.py
index bff4236184..28e2fedbbb 100644
--- a/t/unit/backends/test_database.py
+++ b/t/unit/backends/test_database.py
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@
 from celery.backends.database import (DatabaseBackend, retry, session,  # noqa
                                       session_cleanup)
 from celery.backends.database.models import Task, TaskSet  # noqa
-from celery.backends.database.session import SessionManager  # noqa
+from celery.backends.database.session import (  # noqa
+    PREPARE_MODELS_MAX_RETRIES, ResultModelBase, SessionManager)
 from t import skip  # noqa
 
 
@@ -398,3 +399,28 @@ 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