It is shown that in the gravitational collapse of a charged fluid sphere only one of the two Reissner–Nordström curvature singularities is present, under the assumption that the charge density evaluated at the surface of the sphere and the total charge on the sphere do not have opposite sign. Arguments are presented to show that this assumption is physically reasonable. Ignoring possible naked singularities formed within the collapsing matter, this implies that the only Cauchy horizon in the interior of a charged black hole is the future inner event horizon (r=r, t=+∞), which is known to be both classically and quantum mechanically unstable.

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