diff --git a/cmd/kube-proxy/app/server.go b/cmd/kube-proxy/app/server.go
index 055e9cb3d7b..0b582582fec 100644
--- a/cmd/kube-proxy/app/server.go
+++ b/cmd/kube-proxy/app/server.go
@@ -31,7 +31,6 @@ import (
 	"github.com/spf13/cobra"
 	"github.com/spf13/pflag"
 
-	gerrors "github.com/pkg/errors"
 	v1 "k8s.io/api/core/v1"
 	metav1 "k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/apis/meta/v1"
 	"k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/fields"
@@ -412,7 +411,7 @@ func (o *Options) loadConfig(data []byte) (*kubeproxyconfig.KubeProxyConfigurati
 		// decoder, which has only v1alpha1 registered, and log a warning.
 		// The lenient path is to be dropped when support for v1alpha1 is dropped.
 		if !runtime.IsStrictDecodingError(err) {
-			return nil, gerrors.Wrap(err, "failed to decode")
+			return nil, fmt.Errorf("failed to decode: %w", err)
 		}
 
 		_, lenientCodecs, lenientErr := newLenientSchemeAndCodecs()