diff --git a/litellm/proxy/_experimental/mcp_server/mcp_server_manager.py b/litellm/proxy/_experimental/mcp_server/mcp_server_manager.py
index bd7d2636848..f94df33c90b 100644
--- a/litellm/proxy/_experimental/mcp_server/mcp_server_manager.py
+++ b/litellm/proxy/_experimental/mcp_server/mcp_server_manager.py
@@ -1177,8 +1177,10 @@ class MCPServerManager:
             # raw_headers may have lowercase keys depending on the ASGI server
             normalized = {k.lower(): v for k, v in raw_headers.items()}
             auth_value = normalized.get("authorization")
-        if auth_value and auth_value.startswith("Bearer "):
-            return auth_value[len("Bearer "):]
+        if auth_value:
+            if auth_value.startswith("Bearer "):
+                return auth_value[len("Bearer "):]
+            return auth_value
         return None
 
     def _build_stdio_env(