diff --git a/storages/utils.py b/storages/utils.py
index 9235f5cd8..429250035 100644
--- a/storages/utils.py
+++ b/storages/utils.py
@@ -54,6 +54,11 @@ def clean_name(name):
     if clean_name == ".":
         clean_name = ""
 
+    # If name starts with a leading slash, s3 will throw an access denied error
+    # so we remove the leading slash
+    if name.startswith("/"):
+        clean_name = name[1:]
+
     return clean_name
 
 
diff --git a/tests/test_s3.py b/tests/test_s3.py
index 0c678e395..c35882bd5 100644
--- a/tests/test_s3.py
+++ b/tests/test_s3.py
@@ -106,12 +106,14 @@ def test_storage_url_slashes(self):
         self.storage.custom_domain = "example.com"
 
         # We expect no leading slashes in the path,
+        # However if we encounter a leading slash we clean and remove it
         # and trailing slashes should be preserved.
         self.assertEqual(self.storage.url(""), "https://example.com/")
         self.assertEqual(self.storage.url("path"), "https://example.com/path")
         self.assertEqual(self.storage.url("path/"), "https://example.com/path/")
         self.assertEqual(self.storage.url("path/1"), "https://example.com/path/1")
         self.assertEqual(self.storage.url("path/1/"), "https://example.com/path/1/")
+        self.assertEqual(self.storage.url("/path/1"), "https://example.com/path/1")
 
     def test_storage_save(self):
         """
diff --git a/tests/test_utils.py b/tests/test_utils.py
index 0895356ed..af2640a78 100644
--- a/tests/test_utils.py
+++ b/tests/test_utils.py
@@ -43,6 +43,11 @@ def test_clean_name_trailing_slash(self):
         path = utils.clean_name("path/to/somewhere/")
         self.assertEqual(path, "path/to/somewhere/")
 
+    def test_clean_name_leading_slash(self):
+        """Test the clean_name when the path has a leading slash."""
+        path = utils.clean_name("/path/to/somewhere")
+        self.assertEqual(path, "path/to/somewhere")
+
     def test_clean_name_windows(self):
         """Test the clean_name when the path has a trailing slash."""
         path = utils.clean_name("path\\to\\somewhere")
@@ -189,7 +194,7 @@ def test_with_string_file(self):
     # bytes when encoding with utf-8 vs windows-1252 vs utf-16
 
     def test_with_string_file_specified_encoding(self):
-        content = "\u2122\u20AC\u2030"
+        content = "\u2122\u20ac\u2030"
         file = io.StringIO(content)
         file_wrapped = utils.ReadBytesWrapper(file, encoding="utf-16")
 
@@ -197,7 +202,7 @@ def test_with_string_file_specified_encoding(self):
         self.assertEqual(file_wrapped.read(), content.encode("utf-16"))
 
     def test_with_string_file_detect_encoding(self):
-        content = "\u2122\u20AC\u2030"
+        content = "\u2122\u20ac\u2030"
         with open(
             file=os.path.join(
                 os.path.dirname(__file__), "test_files", "windows-1252-encoded.txt"
@@ -214,7 +219,7 @@ def test_with_string_file_detect_encoding(self):
             self.assertEqual(file_wrapped.read(), content.encode("windows-1252"))
 
     def test_with_string_file_fallback_encoding(self):
-        content = "\u2122\u20AC\u2030"
+        content = "\u2122\u20ac\u2030"
         file = io.StringIO(content)
         file_wrapped = utils.ReadBytesWrapper(file)