diff --git a/src/Faker/Provider/Base.php b/src/Faker/Provider/Base.php
index b8ada960..1938de3f 100644
--- a/src/Faker/Provider/Base.php
+++ b/src/Faker/Provider/Base.php
@@ -167,7 +167,11 @@ class Base
      */
     public static function randomElement($array = array('a', 'b', 'c'))
     {
-        return $array ? $array[self::randomKey($array)] : null;
+        if (!$array) {
+            return null;
+        }
+        $elements = static::randomElements($array, 1);
+        return $elements[0];
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/test/Faker/Provider/BaseTest.php b/test/Faker/Provider/BaseTest.php
index 80fcb0d5..fbf89e43 100644
--- a/test/Faker/Provider/BaseTest.php
+++ b/test/Faker/Provider/BaseTest.php
@@ -84,6 +84,11 @@ class BaseTest extends \PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
         $this->assertTrue(strpos($lowercaseLetters, BaseProvider::randomLetter()) !== false);
     }
 
+    public function testRandomElementReturnsNullWhenArrayEmpty()
+    {
+        $this->assertNull(BaseProvider::randomElement(array()));
+    }
+
     public function testRandomElementReturnsElementFromArray()
     {
         $elements = array('23', 'e', 32, '#');