How do I rotate an image around its center using Pygame?

I had been trying to rotate an image around its center in using pygame.transform.rotate() but it’s not working. Specifically the part that hangs is rot_image = rot_image.subsurface(rot_rect).copy(). I get the exception:

ValueError: subsurface rectangle outside surface area

Here is the code used to rotate an image:

def rot_center(image, angle):
    """rotate an image while keeping its center and size"""
    orig_rect = image.get_rect()
    rot_image = pygame.transform.rotate(image, angle)
    rot_rect = orig_rect.copy()
    rot_rect.center = rot_image.get_rect().center
    rot_image = rot_image.subsurface(rot_rect).copy()
    return rot_image