diff --git a/numpy/random/mtrand/mtrand.pyx b/numpy/random/mtrand/mtrand.pyx
index adf820f0d8b3..f0c5ce7ebfb0 100644
--- a/numpy/random/mtrand/mtrand.pyx
+++ b/numpy/random/mtrand/mtrand.pyx
@@ -590,7 +590,11 @@ _randint_type = {
     }
 
 
-cdef class RandomState:
+def RandomState(seed=None):
+    return RandomStateV1(seed)
+
+
+cdef class RandomStateV1:
     """
     RandomState(seed=None)