diff --git a/news/11387.bugfix.rst b/news/11387.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..285a78ef8eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/11387.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Adding a check to verify that pip exists in th binary_prefix path prior to checking if it matches the pip found using shutil
diff --git a/src/pip/_internal/utils/entrypoints.py b/src/pip/_internal/utils/entrypoints.py
index f292c64045b..0c319aa8542 100644
--- a/src/pip/_internal/utils/entrypoints.py
+++ b/src/pip/_internal/utils/entrypoints.py
@@ -55,9 +55,10 @@ def get_best_invocation_for_this_pip() -> str:
     if exe_are_in_PATH:
         for exe_name in _EXECUTABLE_NAMES:
             found_executable = shutil.which(exe_name)
-            if found_executable and os.path.samefile(
+            bin_exe_path = os.path.join(binary_prefix, exe_name)
+            if found_executable and os.path.isfile(bin_exe_path) and os.path.samefile(
                 found_executable,
-                os.path.join(binary_prefix, exe_name),
+                bin_exe_path,
             ):
                 return exe_name