diff --git a/pkg/kubelet/kubelet_volumes.go b/pkg/kubelet/kubelet_volumes.go
index 2eb91338e24..27c82ae430e 100644
--- a/pkg/kubelet/kubelet_volumes.go
+++ b/pkg/kubelet/kubelet_volumes.go
@@ -116,7 +116,8 @@ func (kl *Kubelet) newVolumeMounterFromPlugins(spec *volume.Spec, pod *v1.Pod, o
 // removeOrphanedPodVolumeDirs attempts to remove the pod volumes directory and
 // its subdirectories. There should be no files left under normal conditions
 // when this is called, so it effectively does a recursive rmdir instead of
-// RemoveAll to ensure it only removes directories and not regular files.
+// RemoveAll to ensure it only removes empty directories and files that were
+// used as mount points, but not content of the mount points.
 func (kl *Kubelet) removeOrphanedPodVolumeDirs(uid types.UID) []error {
 	orphanVolumeErrors := []error{}
 
@@ -136,7 +137,7 @@ func (kl *Kubelet) removeOrphanedPodVolumeDirs(uid types.UID) []error {
 		}
 	}
 
-	// If there are any volume-subpaths, attempt to rmdir them
+	// If there are any volume-subpaths, attempt to remove them
 	subpathVolumePaths, err := kl.getPodVolumeSubpathListFromDisk(uid)
 	if err != nil {
 		orphanVolumeErrors = append(orphanVolumeErrors, fmt.Errorf("orphaned pod %q found, but error occurred during reading of volume-subpaths dir from disk: %v", uid, err))
@@ -144,7 +145,8 @@ func (kl *Kubelet) removeOrphanedPodVolumeDirs(uid types.UID) []error {
 	}
 	if len(subpathVolumePaths) > 0 {
 		for _, subpathVolumePath := range subpathVolumePaths {
-			if err := syscall.Rmdir(subpathVolumePath); err != nil {
+			// Remove both files and empty directories here, as the subpath may have been a bind-mount of a file or a directory.
+			if err := os.Remove(subpathVolumePath); err != nil {
 				orphanVolumeErrors = append(orphanVolumeErrors, fmt.Errorf("orphaned pod %q found, but failed to rmdir() subpath at path %v: %v", uid, subpathVolumePath, err))
 			} else {
 				klog.InfoS("Cleaned up orphaned volume subpath from pod", "podUID", uid, "path", subpathVolumePath)