diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/debian8_discovery.yml b/changelogs/fragments/debian8_discovery.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..d502b24fe3f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/debian8_discovery.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+- interpreter discovery - Debian 8 and lower will avoid unsupported Python3 version in interpreter discovery
diff --git a/lib/ansible/config/base.yml b/lib/ansible/config/base.yml
index 1b088a1cd14..7f0fff9b55d 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/config/base.yml
+++ b/lib/ansible/config/base.yml
@@ -1482,6 +1482,7 @@ INTERPRETER_PYTHON_DISTRO_MAP:
       '6': /usr/bin/python
       '8': /usr/libexec/platform-python
     debian:
+      '8': /usr/bin/python
       '10': /usr/bin/python3
     fedora:
       '23': /usr/bin/python3
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/interpreter_discovery_python/tasks/main.yml b/test/integration/targets/interpreter_discovery_python/tasks/main.yml
index be15186fb28..b8bafd1511e 100644
--- a/test/integration/targets/interpreter_discovery_python/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/test/integration/targets/interpreter_discovery_python/tasks/main.yml
@@ -140,8 +140,11 @@
   - name: debian assertions
     assert:
       that:
-      - auto_out.ansible_facts.discovered_interpreter_python == '/usr/bin/python3'
-    when: distro == 'debian' and distro_version is version('10', '>=')
+      # Debian 8 and older
+      - auto_out.ansible_facts.discovered_interpreter_python == '/usr/bin/python' and distro_version is version('8', '<=') or distro_version is version('8', '>')
+      # Debian 10 and newer
+      - auto_out.ansible_facts.discovered_interpreter_python == '/usr/bin/python3' and distro_version is version('10', '>=') or distro_version is version('10', '<')
+    when: distro == 'debian'
 
   - name: fedora assertions
     assert: