diff --git a/app/assets/javascripts/app/index.coffee b/app/assets/javascripts/app/index.coffee
index e5d4afc94..620cbac3a 100644
--- a/app/assets/javascripts/app/index.coffee
+++ b/app/assets/javascripts/app/index.coffee
@@ -204,8 +204,7 @@ class App extends Spine.Controller
         items = emailAddresses.parseAddressList(line)
 
         # line was not parsable
-        if !items
-          return line
+        return App.Utils.htmlEscape(line) if !items
 
         # set markup
         result = ''