diff --git a/r/NEWS.md b/r/NEWS.md
index 66f37bbe5613c..ebf80ee1d819d 100644
--- a/r/NEWS.md
+++ b/r/NEWS.md
@@ -29,10 +29,11 @@
 
 ## Enhancements
 
-* Table columns can now be added, replaced, or removed by assigning `<-` with either `$` or `[[`
+* Table columns can now be added, replaced, or removed by assigning (`<-`) with either `$` or `[[`
 * Column names of Tables and RecordBatches can be renamed by assigning `names()`
 * Large string types can now be written to Parquet files
-* The [pronouns `.data` and `.env`](https://rlang.r-lib.org/reference/tidyeval-data.html) are now fully supported in Arrow-dplyr pipelines.
+* The [pronouns `.data` and `.env`](https://rlang.r-lib.org/reference/tidyeval-data.html) are now fully supported in Arrow `dplyr` pipelines.
+* Option `arrow.skip_nul` (default `FALSE`, as in `base::scan()`) allows conversion of Arrow string (`utf8()`) type data containing embedded nul `\0` characters to R. If set to `TRUE`, nuls will be stripped and a warning is emitted if any are found.
 
 ## Bug fixes
 
@@ -40,6 +41,7 @@
 * C++ functions now trigger garbage collection when needed
 * `write_parquet()` can now write RecordBatches
 * Reading a Table from a RecordBatchStreamReader containing 0 batches no longer crashes
+* `readr`'s `problems` attribute is removed when converting to Arrow RecordBatch and table to prevent large amounts of metadata from accumulating inadvertently [ARROW-10624](https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/ARROW-10624)
 
 ## Packaging and installation
 
diff --git a/r/R/record-batch.R b/r/R/record-batch.R
index 331a7a772530a..ef42c8de7fbcb 100644
--- a/r/R/record-batch.R
+++ b/r/R/record-batch.R
@@ -274,6 +274,11 @@ as.data.frame.RecordBatch <- function(x, row.names = NULL, optional = FALSE, ...
 }
 
 .serialize_arrow_r_metadata <- function(x) {
+  assert_is(x, "list")
+
+  # drop problems attributes (most likely from readr)
+  x[["attributes"]][["problems"]] <- NULL
+
   rawToChar(serialize(x, NULL, ascii = TRUE))
 }
 
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-metadata.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-metadata.R
index 1cd6fbc4599bc..53ee4279b8525 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-metadata.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-metadata.R
@@ -73,7 +73,9 @@ test_that("Garbage R metadata doesn't break things", {
     "Invalid metadata$r",
     fixed = TRUE
   )
-  tab$metadata$r <- .serialize_arrow_r_metadata("garbage")
+  # serialize data like .serialize_arrow_r_metadata does, but don't call that
+  # directly since it checks to ensure that the data is a list
+  tab$metadata$r <- rawToChar(serialize("garbage", NULL, ascii = TRUE))
   expect_warning(
     expect_identical(as.data.frame(tab), example_data[1:6]),
     "Invalid metadata$r",
@@ -134,3 +136,23 @@ test_that("metadata keeps attribute of top level data frame", {
   expect_identical(attr(as.data.frame(tab), "foo"), "bar")
   expect_identical(as.data.frame(tab), df)
 })
+
+test_that("metadata drops readr's problems attribute", {
+  readr_like <- tibble::tibble(
+    dbl = 1.1,
+    not_here = NA_character_
+  )
+  attributes(readr_like) <- append(
+    attributes(readr_like),
+    list(problems = tibble::tibble(
+      row = 1L,
+      col = NA_character_,
+      expected = "2 columns",
+      actual = "1 columns",
+      file = "'test'"
+    ))
+  )
+
+  tab <- Table$create(readr_like)
+  expect_null(attr(as.data.frame(tab), "problems"))
+})