diff --git a/lib/platform/gitlab/index.js b/lib/platform/gitlab/index.js
index 859e3bcfcf66df9d6183714d65143a01ca32c8a7..33659f6e62ed20b6a35d9a53c5008e8366e4a7cb 100644
--- a/lib/platform/gitlab/index.js
+++ b/lib/platform/gitlab/index.js
@@ -1,12 +1,8 @@
 const is = require('@sindresorhus/is');
 const addrs = require('email-addresses');
-const showdown = require('showdown');
 const get = require('./gl-got-wrapper');
 const endpoints = require('../../util/endpoints');
 
-const converter = new showdown.Converter();
-converter.setFlavor('github');
-
 let config = {};
 
 module.exports = {
@@ -704,15 +700,7 @@ async function mergePr(iid) {
 
 function getPrBody(input) {
   // Convert to HTML using GitHub-flavoured markdown as it is more feature-rich than GitLab's flavour
-  return converter
-    .makeHtml(input)
-    .replace(/<\/?h4[^>]*>/g, '**') // See #954
-    .replace(/Pull Request/g, 'Merge Request')
-    .replace(/PR/g, 'MR')
-    .replace(/<summary>/g, '<h1>')
-    .replace(/<\/summary><\/p>/g, '</h1>')
-    .replace(/<p><details><br \/>\n/g, '')
-    .replace(/<p><\/details><\/p>\n/g, '');
+  return input.replace(/Pull Request/g, 'Merge Request').replace(/PR/g, 'MR');
   // TODO: set maximum length
 }
 
diff --git a/test/platform/gitlab/__snapshots__/index.spec.js.snap b/test/platform/gitlab/__snapshots__/index.spec.js.snap
index 972298c3acc478922c2083d86ba14f13e429ba64..e448249ddda3ead7b48b6e4bb45fd1f4dc51b8a3 100644
--- a/test/platform/gitlab/__snapshots__/index.spec.js.snap
+++ b/test/platform/gitlab/__snapshots__/index.spec.js.snap
@@ -243,7 +243,7 @@ Object {
 }
 `;
 
-exports[`platform/gitlab getPrBody(input) returns updated pr body 1`] = `"<p><a href=\\"https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/5\\">https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/5</a> plus also <a href=\\"https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/5\\">a link</a></p>"`;
+exports[`platform/gitlab getPrBody(input) returns updated pr body 1`] = `"https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/5 plus also [a link](https://github.com/foo/bar/issues/5)"`;
 
 exports[`platform/gitlab getPrFiles() returns files 1`] = `
 Array [