diff --git a/src/lib/statsfuns.jl b/src/lib/statsfuns.jl
index 40c7fddf4..93652a251 100644
--- a/src/lib/statsfuns.jl
+++ b/src/lib/statsfuns.jl
@@ -25,10 +25,7 @@ end
     return log1pexp(x), Δ->(Δ * (x < 9f0 ? logistic(x) : x < 16f0 ? 1 - exp(-x) : 1),)
 end
 
-@adjoint function logsumexp(X::AbstractArray{<:Real})
-    return logsumexp(X), function(Δ)
-        y = StatsFuns.softmax(X)
-        y .*= Δ
-        return (y,)
-    end
+@adjoint function logsumexp(X::AbstractArray{<:Real}; dims=:)
+    lse = logsumexp(X; dims=dims)
+    return lse, Δ -> (Δ .* exp.(X .- lse),)
 end
diff --git a/test/gradcheck.jl b/test/gradcheck.jl
index e97de02f2..e408d1f12 100644
--- a/test/gradcheck.jl
+++ b/test/gradcheck.jl
@@ -1039,6 +1039,7 @@ end
     @test gradtest(StatsFuns.logsumexp, randn(rng, 1, 1))
     @test gradtest(StatsFuns.logsumexp, randn(rng, 3))
     @test gradtest(StatsFuns.logsumexp, randn(rng, 3, 4, 5))
+    @test gradtest(x -> sum(StatsFuns.logsumexp(x; dims=1)), randn(rng, 4, 4))
   end
 end