diff --git a/litellm/integrations/email_alerting.py b/litellm/integrations/email_alerting.py
index f0e77e6db78..e237b207974 100644
--- a/litellm/integrations/email_alerting.py
+++ b/litellm/integrations/email_alerting.py
@@ -69,11 +69,9 @@ async def get_all_team_member_emails(team_id: str | None = None) -> list:
 
 
 async def get_team_admin_emails(team: LiteLLM_TeamTable, prisma_client: object) -> tuple[str, ...]:
-    """Emails of the team's admins: the user record's email, else the inline one, plus the legacy admins list, deduped"""
+    """Emails of the members holding the admin role: the user record's email, else the inline one, deduped"""
     admins: Final = tuple(member for member in team.members_with_roles if member.role == "admin")
-    admin_ids: Final = frozenset(
-        (*(member.user_id for member in admins if member.user_id), *(user_id for user_id in team.admins if user_id))
-    )
+    admin_ids: Final = frozenset(member.user_id for member in admins if member.user_id)
     rows: Final = (
         await UserRepository(prisma_client).find_many(
             where={"user_id": {"in": sorted(admin_ids)}}  # mutable-ok: prisma filter payloads are plain dict/list
diff --git a/tests/test_litellm/integrations/test_email_alerting.py b/tests/test_litellm/integrations/test_email_alerting.py
index e819a3d4d59..8b13b223239 100644
--- a/tests/test_litellm/integrations/test_email_alerting.py
+++ b/tests/test_litellm/integrations/test_email_alerting.py
@@ -44,11 +44,13 @@ async def test_should_return_only_admin_emails():
 
 
 @pytest.mark.asyncio
-async def test_should_include_legacy_admins_list():
+async def test_should_ignore_the_legacy_admins_list_the_proxy_does_not_authorize():
+    prisma: Final = _prisma(USERS)
     team: Final = LiteLLM_TeamTable(
         team_id="t1", admins=["u-legacy"], members_with_roles=[Member(user_id="u-admin", role="admin")]
     )
-    assert sorted(await get_team_admin_emails(team, _prisma(USERS))) == ["admin@example.com", "legacy@example.com"]
+    assert await get_team_admin_emails(team, prisma) == ("admin@example.com",)
+    assert prisma.db.litellm_usertable.queries == [{"user_id": {"in": ["u-admin"]}}]
 
 
 @pytest.mark.asyncio
@@ -79,9 +81,9 @@ async def test_should_include_email_only_admins_and_dedupe_ids_and_emails():
     )
     team: Final = LiteLLM_TeamTable(
         team_id="t1",
-        admins=["", "u-legacy", "u-admin"],
         members_with_roles=[
             Member(user_id="u-admin", role="admin"),
+            Member(user_id="u-legacy", role="admin"),
             Member(user_email="mail-only@example.com", role="admin"),
         ],
     )