diff --git a/src/components/structures/LoggedInView.tsx b/src/components/structures/LoggedInView.tsx
index 9de2aac8e9..f90ae18f00 100644
--- a/src/components/structures/LoggedInView.tsx
+++ b/src/components/structures/LoggedInView.tsx
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@ import { DragDropContext } from 'react-beautiful-dnd';
 import {Key, isOnlyCtrlOrCmdKeyEvent, isOnlyCtrlOrCmdIgnoreShiftKeyEvent} from '../../Keyboard';
 import PageTypes from '../../PageTypes';
 import CallMediaHandler from '../../CallMediaHandler';
-import { fixupColorFonts } from '../../utils/FontManager';
 import * as sdk from '../../index';
 import dis from '../../dispatcher';
 import sessionStore from '../../stores/SessionStore';
@@ -166,8 +165,6 @@ class LoggedInView extends React.PureComponent<IProps, IState> {
         this._matrixClient.on("sync", this.onSync);
         this._matrixClient.on("RoomState.events", this.onRoomStateEvents);
 
-        fixupColorFonts();
-
         this._roomView = React.createRef();
         this._resizeContainer = React.createRef();
     }
diff --git a/src/components/structures/MatrixChat.js b/src/components/structures/MatrixChat.js
index 519b39d436..4b269ceae4 100644
--- a/src/components/structures/MatrixChat.js
+++ b/src/components/structures/MatrixChat.js
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ import { storeRoomAliasInCache } from '../../RoomAliasCache';
 import { defer } from "../../utils/promise";
 import ToastStore from "../../stores/ToastStore";
 import * as StorageManager from "../../utils/StorageManager";
+import { fixupColorFonts } from '../../utils/FontManager';
 
 /** constants for MatrixChat.state.view */
 export const VIEWS = {
@@ -244,6 +245,8 @@ export default createReactClass({
 
         this._pageChanging = false;
 
+        // load emoji font
+        fixupColorFonts();
         // check we have the right tint applied for this theme.
         // N.B. we don't call the whole of setTheme() here as we may be
         // racing with the theme CSS download finishing from index.js