diff --git a/docs/releasenotes/5.2.0.rst b/docs/releasenotes/5.2.0.rst
index 3a86a1d11..65b2d8fd1 100644
--- a/docs/releasenotes/5.2.0.rst
+++ b/docs/releasenotes/5.2.0.rst
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ Deprecations
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
 These version constants have been deprecated. ``VERSION`` will be removed in
-Pillow 6.0.0, and ``PILLOW_VERSION`` will be removed in a future release.
+Pillow 6.0.0, and ``PILLOW_VERSION`` will be removed after that.
 
 * ``PIL.VERSION`` (old PIL version 1.1.7)
 * ``PIL.PILLOW_VERSION``
diff --git a/src/PIL/Image.py b/src/PIL/Image.py
index 87cfc5a02..1954c52ee 100644
--- a/src/PIL/Image.py
+++ b/src/PIL/Image.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 #
 
 # VERSION is deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 6.0.0.
-# PILLOW_VERSION is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
+# PILLOW_VERSION is deprecated and will be removed after that.
 # Use __version__ instead.
 from . import VERSION, PILLOW_VERSION, __version__, _plugins
 from ._util import py3
diff --git a/src/PIL/__init__.py b/src/PIL/__init__.py
index 5806a2174..eee0abde5 100644
--- a/src/PIL/__init__.py
+++ b/src/PIL/__init__.py
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 from . import _version
 
 # VERSION is deprecated and will be removed in Pillow 6.0.0.
-# PILLOW_VERSION is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
+# PILLOW_VERSION is deprecated and will be removed after that.
 # Use __version__ instead.
 VERSION = '1.1.7'  # PIL Version
 PILLOW_VERSION = __version__ = _version.__version__