diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.test.tsx b/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.test.tsx
index c82a1cd448f..802bb695f2c 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.test.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.test.tsx
@@ -96,11 +96,14 @@ describe('PromQueryField typeahead handling', () => {
 
     it('returns label suggestions on label context but leaves out labels that already exist', () => {
       const instance = shallow(
-        <PromQueryField {...defaultProps} labelKeys={{ '{job="foo"}': ['bar', 'job'] }} />
+        <PromQueryField
+          {...defaultProps}
+          labelKeys={{ '{job1="foo",job2!="foo",job3=~"foo"}': ['bar', 'job1', 'job2', 'job3'] }}
+        />
       ).instance() as PromQueryField;
-      const value = Plain.deserialize('{job="foo",}');
+      const value = Plain.deserialize('{job1="foo",job2!="foo",job3=~"foo",}');
       const range = value.selection.merge({
-        anchorOffset: 11,
+        anchorOffset: 36,
       });
       const valueWithSelection = value.change().select(range).value;
       const result = instance.getTypeahead({
@@ -113,6 +116,33 @@ describe('PromQueryField typeahead handling', () => {
       expect(result.suggestions).toEqual([{ items: [{ label: 'bar' }], label: 'Labels' }]);
     });
 
+    it('returns label value suggestions inside a label value context after a negated matching operator', () => {
+      const instance = shallow(
+        <PromQueryField
+          {...defaultProps}
+          labelKeys={{ '{}': ['label'] }}
+          labelValues={{ '{}': { label: ['a', 'b', 'c'] } }}
+        />
+      ).instance() as PromQueryField;
+      const value = Plain.deserialize('{label!=}');
+      const range = value.selection.merge({ anchorOffset: 8 });
+      const valueWithSelection = value.change().select(range).value;
+      const result = instance.getTypeahead({
+        text: '!=',
+        prefix: '',
+        wrapperClasses: ['context-labels'],
+        labelKey: 'label',
+        value: valueWithSelection,
+      });
+      expect(result.context).toBe('context-label-values');
+      expect(result.suggestions).toEqual([
+        {
+          items: [{ label: 'a' }, { label: 'b' }, { label: 'c' }],
+          label: 'Label values for "label"',
+        },
+      ]);
+    });
+
     it('returns a refresher on label context and unavailable metric', () => {
       const instance = shallow(
         <PromQueryField {...defaultProps} labelKeys={{ '{__name__="foo"}': ['bar'] }} />
diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.tsx b/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.tsx
index fbe58912a81..442e51af987 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/PromQueryField.tsx
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ export function willApplySuggestion(
 
     case 'context-label-values': {
       // Always add quotes and remove existing ones instead
-      if (!(typeaheadText.startsWith('="') || typeaheadText.startsWith('"'))) {
+      if (!typeaheadText.match(/^(!?=~?"|")/)) {
         suggestion = `"${suggestion}`;
       }
       if (getNextCharacter() !== '"') {
@@ -421,7 +421,7 @@ class PromQueryField extends React.PureComponent<PromQueryFieldProps, PromQueryF
     const containsMetric = selector.indexOf('__name__=') > -1;
     const existingKeys = parsedSelector ? parsedSelector.labelKeys : [];
 
-    if ((text && text.startsWith('=')) || _.includes(wrapperClasses, 'attr-value')) {
+    if ((text && text.match(/^!?=~?/)) || _.includes(wrapperClasses, 'attr-value')) {
       // Label values
       if (labelKey && this.state.labelValues[selector] && this.state.labelValues[selector][labelKey]) {
         const labelValues = this.state.labelValues[selector][labelKey];
diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/QueryField.tsx b/public/app/features/explore/QueryField.tsx
index c89893b4f28..c3c41b7ab17 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/QueryField.tsx
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/QueryField.tsx
@@ -228,7 +228,13 @@ class QueryField extends React.PureComponent<TypeaheadFieldProps, TypeaheadField
       const offset = range.startOffset;
       const text = selection.anchorNode.textContent;
       let prefix = text.substr(0, offset);
-      if (cleanText) {
+
+      // Label values could have valid characters erased if `cleanText()` is
+      // blindly applied, which would undesirably interfere with suggestions
+      const labelValueMatch = prefix.match(/(?:!?=~?"?|")(.*)/);
+      if (labelValueMatch) {
+        prefix = labelValueMatch[1];
+      } else if (cleanText) {
         prefix = cleanText(prefix);
       }
 
diff --git a/public/app/features/explore/utils/prometheus.ts b/public/app/features/explore/utils/prometheus.ts
index 8c41b94d684..170c5ec8cc5 100644
--- a/public/app/features/explore/utils/prometheus.ts
+++ b/public/app/features/explore/utils/prometheus.ts
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ export const cleanText = s => s.replace(/[{}[\]="(),!~+\-*/^%]/g, '').trim();
 
 // const cleanSelectorRegexp = /\{(\w+="[^"\n]*?")(,\w+="[^"\n]*?")*\}/;
 const selectorRegexp = /\{[^}]*?\}/;
-const labelRegexp = /\b\w+="[^"\n]*?"/g;
+const labelRegexp = /\b(\w+)(!?=~?)("[^"\n]*?")/g;
 export function parseSelector(query: string, cursorOffset = 1): { labelKeys: any[]; selector: string } {
   if (!query.match(selectorRegexp)) {
     // Special matcher for metrics
@@ -66,11 +66,8 @@ export function parseSelector(query: string, cursorOffset = 1): { labelKeys: any
   // Extract clean labels to form clean selector, incomplete labels are dropped
   const selector = query.slice(prefixOpen, suffixClose);
   const labels = {};
-  selector.replace(labelRegexp, match => {
-    const delimiterIndex = match.indexOf('=');
-    const key = match.slice(0, delimiterIndex);
-    const value = match.slice(delimiterIndex + 1, match.length);
-    labels[key] = value;
+  selector.replace(labelRegexp, (_, key, operator, value) => {
+    labels[key] = { value, operator };
     return '';
   });
 
@@ -78,12 +75,12 @@ export function parseSelector(query: string, cursorOffset = 1): { labelKeys: any
   const metricPrefix = query.slice(0, prefixOpen);
   const metricMatch = metricPrefix.match(/[A-Za-z:][\w:]*$/);
   if (metricMatch) {
-    labels['__name__'] = `"${metricMatch[0]}"`;
+    labels['__name__'] = { value: `"${metricMatch[0]}"`, operator: '=' };
   }
 
   // Build sorted selector
   const labelKeys = Object.keys(labels).sort();
-  const cleanSelector = labelKeys.map(key => `${key}=${labels[key]}`).join(',');
+  const cleanSelector = labelKeys.map(key => `${key}${labels[key].operator}${labels[key].value}`).join(',');
 
   const selectorString = ['{', cleanSelector, '}'].join('');