diff --git a/src/telemetry-tracing.ts b/src/telemetry-tracing.ts
index e6f44b0d2..cb422382d 100644
--- a/src/telemetry-tracing.ts
+++ b/src/telemetry-tracing.ts
@@ -504,7 +504,11 @@ export class PubsubSpans {
     if (span) {
       // Also attempt to link from message spans back to the publish RPC span.
       messages.forEach(m => {
-        if (m.parentSpan && isSampled(m.parentSpan)) {
+        if (
+          m.parentSpan &&
+          isSampled(m.parentSpan) &&
+          typeof m.parentSpan?.addLink === 'function'
+        ) {
           m.parentSpan.addLink({context: span.spanContext()});
         }
       });
@@ -549,7 +553,7 @@ export class PubsubSpans {
     if (span) {
       // Also attempt to link from the subscribe span(s) back to the publish RPC span.
       messageSpans.forEach(m => {
-        if (m && isSampled(m)) {
+        if (m && isSampled(m) && typeof m?.addLink === 'function') {
           m.addLink({context: span.spanContext()});
         }
       });
@@ -597,7 +601,7 @@ export class PubsubSpans {
     if (span) {
       // Also attempt to link from the subscribe span(s) back to the publish RPC span.
       messageSpans.forEach(m => {
-        if (m && isSampled(m)) {
+        if (m && isSampled(m) && typeof m?.addLink === 'function') {
           m.addLink({context: span.spanContext()});
         }
       });
diff --git a/test/telemetry-tracing.ts b/test/telemetry-tracing.ts
index 02715a304..8354833ca 100644
--- a/test/telemetry-tracing.ts
+++ b/test/telemetry-tracing.ts
@@ -366,6 +366,7 @@ describe('OpenTelemetryTracer', () => {
         topicName,
         'test',
       ) as trace.Span;
+      const parentSpanLink = sinon.spy(span, 'addLink');
       message.parentSpan = span;
       span.end();
 
@@ -374,7 +375,6 @@ describe('OpenTelemetryTracer', () => {
         topicName,
         'test',
       );
-
       publishSpan?.end();
       const spans = exporter.getFinishedSpans();
       const publishReadSpan = spans.pop();
@@ -387,6 +387,7 @@ describe('OpenTelemetryTracer', () => {
       );
       assert.strictEqual(publishReadSpan.links.length, 1);
       assert.strictEqual(childReadSpan.links.length, 1);
+      assert.strictEqual(parentSpanLink.callCount, 1);
     });
   });
 });