diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/fix_ansible-doc_colors_without_tty.yaml b/changelogs/fragments/fix_ansible-doc_colors_without_tty.yaml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..7fa96885e51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/fix_ansible-doc_colors_without_tty.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+  - ansible-doc - don't write ansi escape sequences without interactive tty / respect ANSIBLE_COLOR
diff --git a/lib/ansible/cli/doc.py b/lib/ansible/cli/doc.py
index d591e000a9e..6aa09edac9d 100755
--- a/lib/ansible/cli/doc.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/cli/doc.py
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ from ansible.plugins.list import _list_plugins_with_info, _PluginDocMetadata
 from ansible.plugins.loader import action_loader, fragment_loader
 from ansible.utils.collection_loader import AnsibleCollectionConfig, AnsibleCollectionRef
 from ansible.utils.collection_loader._collection_finder import _get_collection_name_from_path
-from ansible.utils.color import stringc
+from ansible.utils.color import ANSIBLE_COLOR, stringc
 from ansible.utils.display import Display
 from ansible.utils.plugin_docs import get_plugin_docs, get_docstring, get_versioned_doclink
 from ansible.template import trust_as_template
@@ -423,7 +423,7 @@ def _format(string, *args):
         if style not in ref_style and style.upper() not in STYLE and style not in C.COLOR_CODES:
             raise KeyError("Invalid format value supplied: %s" % style)
 
-        if C.ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR:
+        if C.ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR or not ANSIBLE_COLOR:
             # ignore most styles, but some already had 'identifier strings'
             if style in NOCOLOR:
                 string = NOCOLOR[style] % string
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/ansible-doc/test.yml b/test/integration/targets/ansible-doc/test.yml
index fbf36ae2593..625473b1fb5 100644
--- a/test/integration/targets/ansible-doc/test.yml
+++ b/test/integration/targets/ansible-doc/test.yml
@@ -1,15 +1,44 @@
 - hosts: localhost
-  gather_facts: no
+  gather_facts: false
   environment:
-    ANSIBLE_LIBRARY: "{{ playbook_dir }}/library"
-    ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR: 1
     ANSIBLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS: 1
     ANSIBLE_DOC_FRAGMENT_PLUGINS: "{{ playbook_dir }}/doc_fragments"
+    ANSIBLE_LIBRARY: "{{ playbook_dir }}/library"
+    ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR: 1
   vars:
     # avoid header that has full path and won't work across random paths for tests
     actual_output_clean: '{{ actual_output.splitlines()[1:] }}'
     expected_output_clean: '{{ expected_output.splitlines()[1:] }}'
   tasks:
+    - name: create temporary file
+      ansible.builtin.tempfile:
+        state: file
+      register: temp_file
+
+    - name: redirect stdout and stderr to file
+      ansible.builtin.shell: |
+        ansible-doc test_docs > {{ temp_file.path }} 2>&1
+      environment:
+        ANSIBLE_DEPRECATION_WARNINGS: 0
+        ANSIBLE_DEVEL_WARNING: 0
+        ANSIBLE_FORCE_COLOR: 0
+        ANSIBLE_NOCOLOR: 0
+
+    - name: assert that file does not contain ansi escape sequences
+      assert:
+        that:
+          - actual_output[0][:20] == "> MODULE test_docs ("
+        fail_msg: |
+          actual_output[0][:20]: {{ actual_output[0][:20] }}
+          actual_output: {{ actual_output }}
+      vars:
+        actual_output: "{{ lookup('file', temp_file.path).splitlines() }}"
+
+    - name: remove tempfile
+      ansible.builtin.file:
+        path: "{{ temp_file.path }}"
+        state: absent
+
     - name: module with missing description return docs
       command: ansible-doc test_docs_missing_description
       register: result