diff --git a/utils/kubernetes/kube_state_processor.py b/utils/kubernetes/kube_state_processor.py
index a2ec06165a..2eb3138df2 100644
--- a/utils/kubernetes/kube_state_processor.py
+++ b/utils/kubernetes/kube_state_processor.py
@@ -202,7 +202,7 @@ def kube_pod_container_status_restarts(self, message, **kwargs):
         """ Number of desired pods for a deployment. """
         metric_name = NAMESPACE + '.container.restarts'
         for metric in message.metric:
-            val = metric.gauge.value
+            val = metric.counter.value
             tags = ['{}:{}'.format(label.name, label.value) for label in metric.label]
             self.gauge(metric_name, val, tags)