diff --git a/hack/make-rules/clean.sh b/hack/make-rules/clean.sh
index f2b683ba028..cd5ccb40004 100755
--- a/hack/make-rules/clean.sh
+++ b/hack/make-rules/clean.sh
@@ -24,15 +24,14 @@ source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/util.sh"
 CLEAN_PATTERNS=(
   "_tmp"
   "doc_tmp"
-  "((?!staging\/src\/k8s\.io\/apiextensions-apiserver\/pkg\/generated\/openapi).)*/zz_generated.openapi.go"
   "test/e2e/generated/bindata.go"
 )
 
-for pattern in "${CLEAN_PATTERNS[@]}"; do
-  while IFS=$'\n' read -r match; do
-    echo "Removing ${match#"${KUBE_ROOT}"\/} .."
-    rm -rf "${match#"${KUBE_ROOT}"\/}"
-  done <   <(find "${KUBE_ROOT}" -iregex "^${KUBE_ROOT}/${pattern}$")
+for item in "${CLEAN_PATTERNS[@]}"; do
+  # Shellcheck wants the ":?" because of paranoia about 'rm -rf /'. It will
+  # cause an error if unset, which is already true because of "nounset", but
+  # belts AND suspenders is fine for this.
+  rm -rf "${KUBE_ROOT:?}/${item:?}"
 done
 
 # ex: ts=2 sw=2 et filetype=sh