diff --git a/cmd/kube-apiserver/app/server.go b/cmd/kube-apiserver/app/server.go
index f617d59bf4d..be368e177af 100644
--- a/cmd/kube-apiserver/app/server.go
+++ b/cmd/kube-apiserver/app/server.go
@@ -677,8 +677,17 @@ func Complete(s *options.ServerRunOptions) (completedServerRunOptions, error) {
 	}
 
 	if s.Etcd.EnableWatchCache {
+		sizes := kubeapiserver.DefaultWatchCacheSizes()
 		// Ensure that overrides parse correctly.
-		if _, err := serveroptions.ParseWatchCacheSizes(s.Etcd.WatchCacheSizes); err != nil {
+		userSpecified, err := serveroptions.ParseWatchCacheSizes(s.Etcd.WatchCacheSizes)
+		if err != nil {
+			return options, err
+		}
+		for resource, size := range userSpecified {
+			sizes[resource] = size
+		}
+		s.Etcd.WatchCacheSizes, err = serveroptions.WriteWatchCacheSizes(sizes)
+		if err != nil {
 			return options, err
 		}
 	}
diff --git a/pkg/kubeapiserver/default_storage_factory_builder.go b/pkg/kubeapiserver/default_storage_factory_builder.go
index eaf38a5fe38..03e7437474c 100644
--- a/pkg/kubeapiserver/default_storage_factory_builder.go
+++ b/pkg/kubeapiserver/default_storage_factory_builder.go
@@ -49,6 +49,15 @@ var SpecialDefaultResourcePrefixes = map[schema.GroupResource]string{
 	{Group: "policy", Resource: "podsecuritypolicies"}:     "podsecuritypolicy",
 }
 
+// DefaultWatchCacheSizes defines default resources for which watchcache
+// should be disabled.
+func DefaultWatchCacheSizes() map[schema.GroupResource]int {
+	return map[schema.GroupResource]int{
+		{Resource: "events"}:                         0,
+		{Group: "events.k8s.io", Resource: "events"}: 0,
+	}
+}
+
 // NewStorageFactoryConfig returns a new StorageFactoryConfig set up with necessary resource overrides.
 func NewStorageFactoryConfig() *StorageFactoryConfig {