diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-10-20-00-00-00.gh-issue-159739.0c4ae9.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-10-20-00-00-00.gh-issue-159739.0c4ae9.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000000..3392832f714adce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-10-20-00-00-00.gh-issue-159739.0c4ae9.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Fix reference cycles involving the types of grapheme iterators and segments
+created by :func:`unicodedata.iter_graphemes`.
diff --git a/Modules/unicodedata.c b/Modules/unicodedata.c
index b52801018b8846b..6049ec3b56912f8 100644
--- a/Modules/unicodedata.c
+++ b/Modules/unicodedata.c
@@ -2001,6 +2001,7 @@ Segment_dealloc(PyObject *self)
 static int
 Segment_traverse(PyObject *self, visitproc visit, void *arg)
 {
+    Py_VISIT(Py_TYPE(self));
     Py_VISIT(((SegmentObject *)self)->string);
     return 0;
 }
@@ -2069,6 +2070,7 @@ GBI_dealloc(PyObject *self)
 static int
 GBI_traverse(PyObject *self, visitproc visit, void *arg)
 {
+    Py_VISIT(Py_TYPE(self));
     Py_VISIT(((GraphemeBreakIterator *)self)->iter.str);
     return 0;
 }