diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 89d3745b..f5d94187 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ CVS code
   colortoint()
 	- Don't bomb after invalid color and print bad color name
 	  (David Benbennick).
-	- And reset mcolor to -1.
+  colortoint, parse_colors()
+	- Don't add strings with invalid fg colors at all.
 - nano.1, nano.1.html:
 	- Add initialization file comments, change some options from 
 	  bracketed to underlined to emphasize that they are not 
diff --git a/rcfile.c b/rcfile.c
index dade1c43..03f5dfee 100644
--- a/rcfile.c
+++ b/rcfile.c
@@ -361,6 +361,10 @@ void parse_colors(char *ptr)
 
     fg = colortoint(fgstr, &bright);
 
+    /* Don't try and parse screwed up fg colors */
+    if (fg == -1)
+	return;
+
     if (syntaxes == NULL) {
 	rcfile_error(_("Cannot add a color directive without a syntax line"));
 	return;