diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/csv/UnivocityParser.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/csv/UnivocityParser.scala
index 3898eca79478e..898b963fd0ab5 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/csv/UnivocityParser.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/csv/UnivocityParser.scala
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ class UnivocityParser(
           case NonFatal(e) =>
             // If fails to parse, then tries the way used in 2.0 and 1.x for backwards
             // compatibility.
-            val str = UTF8String.fromString(DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(datum))
+            val str = DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(UTF8String.fromString(datum))
             DateTimeUtils.stringToTimestamp(str, options.zoneId).getOrElse(throw e)
         }
       }
@@ -199,7 +199,7 @@ class UnivocityParser(
           case NonFatal(e) =>
             // If fails to parse, then tries the way used in 2.0 and 1.x for backwards
             // compatibility.
-            val str = UTF8String.fromString(DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(datum))
+            val str = DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(UTF8String.fromString(datum))
             DateTimeUtils.stringToDate(str, options.zoneId).getOrElse(throw e)
         }
       }
diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/json/JacksonParser.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/json/JacksonParser.scala
index e038f777c7a41..7f69180e87e7e 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/json/JacksonParser.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/json/JacksonParser.scala
@@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ class JacksonParser(
             case NonFatal(e) =>
               // If fails to parse, then tries the way used in 2.0 and 1.x for backwards
               // compatibility.
-              val str = UTF8String.fromString(DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(parser.getText))
+              val str = DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(UTF8String.fromString(parser.getText))
               DateTimeUtils.stringToTimestamp(str, options.zoneId).getOrElse(throw e)
           }
 
@@ -255,7 +255,7 @@ class JacksonParser(
             case NonFatal(e) =>
               // If fails to parse, then tries the way used in 2.0 and 1.x for backwards
               // compatibility.
-              val str = UTF8String.fromString(DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(parser.getText))
+              val str = DateTimeUtils.cleanLegacyTimestampStr(UTF8String.fromString(parser.getText))
               DateTimeUtils.stringToDate(str, options.zoneId).getOrElse {
                 // In Spark 1.5.0, we store the data as number of days since epoch in string.
                 // So, we just convert it to Int.
diff --git a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/util/DateTimeUtils.scala b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/util/DateTimeUtils.scala
index c466a60259c7f..5c3d91c105094 100644
--- a/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/util/DateTimeUtils.scala
+++ b/sql/catalyst/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/catalyst/util/DateTimeUtils.scala
@@ -203,20 +203,10 @@ object DateTimeUtils {
     Math.multiplyExact(millis, MICROS_PER_MILLIS)
   }
 
+  private final val gmtUtf8 = UTF8String.fromString("GMT")
   // The method is called by JSON/CSV parser to clean up the legacy timestamp string by removing
-  // the "GMT" string.
-  def cleanLegacyTimestampStr(s: String): String = {
-    val indexOfGMT = s.indexOf("GMT")
-    if (indexOfGMT != -1) {
-      // ISO8601 with a weird time zone specifier (2000-01-01T00:00GMT+01:00)
-      val s0 = s.substring(0, indexOfGMT)
-      val s1 = s.substring(indexOfGMT + 3)
-      // Mapped to 2000-01-01T00:00+01:00
-      s0 + s1
-    } else {
-      s
-    }
-  }
+  // the "GMT" string. For example, it returns 2000-01-01T00:00+01:00 for 2000-01-01T00:00GMT+01:00.
+  def cleanLegacyTimestampStr(s: UTF8String): UTF8String = s.replace(gmtUtf8, UTF8String.EMPTY_UTF8)
 
   /**
    * Trims and parses a given UTF8 timestamp string to the corresponding a corresponding [[Long]]