diff --git a/vllm/transformers_utils/tokenizer.py b/vllm/transformers_utils/tokenizer.py
index ae96ebe4eaa2..ac98b0135fdf 100644
--- a/vllm/transformers_utils/tokenizer.py
+++ b/vllm/transformers_utils/tokenizer.py
@@ -45,11 +45,12 @@ def decode_tokens(
     `skip_special_tokens=None` means to use the backend's default
     settings.
     """
+    decode_method = getattr(tokenizer, "_decode", tokenizer.decode)
     if skip_special_tokens is not None:
-        return tokenizer.decode(token_ids,
-                                skip_special_tokens=skip_special_tokens)
+        return decode_method(token_ids,
+                             skip_special_tokens=skip_special_tokens)
 
-    return tokenizer.decode(token_ids)
+    return decode_method(token_ids)
 
 
 def encode_tokens(