diff --git a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SharedState.scala b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SharedState.scala
index e894f39d9270b..2a3c26561fcb3 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SharedState.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/internal/SharedState.scala
@@ -113,6 +113,9 @@ private[sql] class SharedState(
     val kvStore = sparkContext.statusStore.store.asInstanceOf[ElementTrackingStore]
     val listener = new SQLAppStatusListener(conf, kvStore, live = true)
     sparkContext.listenerBus.addToStatusQueue(listener)
+    sparkContext.cleaner.foreach { cleaner =>
+      cleaner.registerSparkListenerForCleanup(this, listener)
+    }
     val statusStore = new SQLAppStatusStore(kvStore, Some(listener))
     sparkContext.ui.foreach(new SQLTab(statusStore, _))
     statusStore
diff --git a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SparkSessionBuilderSuite.scala b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SparkSessionBuilderSuite.scala
index 0a7c684a68955..715f9184ba133 100644
--- a/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SparkSessionBuilderSuite.scala
+++ b/sql/core/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/sql/SparkSessionBuilderSuite.scala
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ import org.scalatest.time.SpanSugar._
 import org.apache.spark.{SparkConf, SparkContext, SparkException, SparkFunSuite}
 import org.apache.spark.internal.config.EXECUTOR_ALLOW_SPARK_CONTEXT
 import org.apache.spark.internal.config.UI.UI_ENABLED
+import org.apache.spark.sql.execution.ui.SQLAppStatusListener
 import org.apache.spark.sql.internal.SQLConf
 import org.apache.spark.sql.internal.StaticSQLConf._
 import org.apache.spark.sql.util.ExecutionListenerBus
@@ -74,6 +75,41 @@ class SparkSessionBuilderSuite extends SparkFunSuite with BeforeAndAfterEach wit
     }
   }
 
+  test("SPARK-32165: Fix memory leak of SQLAppStatusListener") {
+    val conf = new SparkConf()
+      .setMaster("local")
+      .setAppName("test-app-SPARK-32165")
+    val context = new SparkContext(conf)
+
+    @inline def listenersNum(): Int = {
+      context
+        .listenerBus
+        .listeners
+        .asScala
+        .count(_.isInstanceOf[SQLAppStatusListener])
+    }
+
+    (1 to 10).foreach { _ =>
+      SparkSession
+        .builder()
+        .sparkContext(context)
+        .master("local")
+        .getOrCreate()
+        .sessionState // this touches the sessionState
+      SparkSession.clearActiveSession()
+      SparkSession.clearDefaultSession()
+    }
+
+    eventually(timeout(10.seconds), interval(1.seconds)) {
+      System.gc()
+      // After GC, the number of SQLAppStatusListener should be less than 10 (we created 10
+      // SparkSessions in total).
+      // Since GC can't 100% guarantee all out-of-referenced objects be cleaned at one time,
+      // here, we check at least one listener is cleaned up to prove the mechanism works.
+      assert(listenersNum() < 10)
+    }
+  }
+
   test("create with config options and propagate them to SparkContext and SparkSession") {
     val session = SparkSession.builder()
       .master("local")