diff --git a/ReactAndroid/build.gradle b/ReactAndroid/build.gradle
index 84821820cd2ff6..3e0f804219c135 100644
--- a/ReactAndroid/build.gradle
+++ b/ReactAndroid/build.gradle
@@ -351,6 +351,12 @@ android {
     packagingOptions {
         exclude("META-INF/NOTICE")
         exclude("META-INF/LICENSE")
+        // We intentionally don't want to bundle any JS Runtime inside the Android AAR
+        // we produce. The reason behind this is that we want to allow users to pick the
+        // JS engine by specifying a dependency on either `hermes-engine` or `android-jsc`
+        // that will include the necessary .so files to load.
+        exclude("**/libhermes.so")
+        exclude("**/libjsc.so")
     }
 
     configurations {
diff --git a/template/android/app/build.gradle b/template/android/app/build.gradle
index 850578b51d8ab4..506dca121113d4 100644
--- a/template/android/app/build.gradle
+++ b/template/android/app/build.gradle
@@ -233,11 +233,6 @@ android {
 
         }
     }
-
-    packagingOptions {
-        pickFirst '**/libhermes.so'
-        pickFirst '**/libjsc.so'
-    }
 }
 
 dependencies {