diff --git a/litellm/__init__.py b/litellm/__init__.py
index e3ce5fbec9..6b82406781 100644
--- a/litellm/__init__.py
+++ b/litellm/__init__.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ set_verbose=False
 telemetry=True
 max_tokens = 256 # OpenAI Defaults
 retry = True
+api_key = None
 openai_key = None 
 azure_key = None 
 anthropic_key = None 
diff --git a/litellm/utils.py b/litellm/utils.py
index f57c390cbe..662e70a9cc 100644
--- a/litellm/utils.py
+++ b/litellm/utils.py
@@ -717,10 +717,10 @@ def get_secret(secret_name):
         # if secret manager fails default to using .env variables
         os.environ[secret_name] = secret # set to env to be safe
         return secret
+     elif litellm.api_key != None: # if users use litellm default key
+      return litellm.api_key
      else:
       return os.environ.get(secret_name)
-  else:
-    return os.environ.get(secret_name)
 
 ######## Streaming Class ############################
 # wraps the completion stream to return the correct format for the model
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 2235a6da06..df6f809daf 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "litellm"
-version = "0.1.389"
+version = "0.1.390"
 description = "Library to easily interface with LLM API providers"
 authors = ["BerriAI"]
 license = "MIT License"