diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index e604a92d2145c..494abb29d01fe 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -57,6 +57,8 @@ The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](http://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/).
 
 - Tuner algorithms will be skipped if `fast_dev_run=True` ([#3903](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/3903))
 
+- WandbLogger does not force wandb `reinit` arg to True anymore and creates a run only when needed ([#4648](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/4648))
+
 
 - Renamed class metric `Fbeta` -> `FBeta` ([#4656](https://github.com/PyTorchLightning/pytorch-lightning/pull/4656))
 
diff --git a/pytorch_lightning/loggers/wandb.py b/pytorch_lightning/loggers/wandb.py
index 436f900c669c4..20ecb8fe40d19 100644
--- a/pytorch_lightning/loggers/wandb.py
+++ b/pytorch_lightning/loggers/wandb.py
@@ -59,6 +59,8 @@ class WandbLogger(LightningLoggerBase):
 
     Example::
 
+    .. code::
+
         from pytorch_lightning.loggers import WandbLogger
         from pytorch_lightning import Trainer
         wandb_logger = WandbLogger()
@@ -131,7 +133,7 @@ def experiment(self) -> Run:
                 os.environ['WANDB_MODE'] = 'dryrun'
             self._experiment = wandb.init(
                 name=self._name, dir=self._save_dir, project=self._project, anonymous=self._anonymous,
-                reinit=True, id=self._id, resume='allow', **self._kwargs)
+                id=self._id, resume='allow', **self._kwargs) if wandb.run is None else wandb.run
             # save checkpoints in wandb dir to upload on W&B servers
             if self._log_model:
                 self._save_dir = self._experiment.dir
diff --git a/tests/loggers/test_all.py b/tests/loggers/test_all.py
index d1e87332ccc71..386b8f1e23ea9 100644
--- a/tests/loggers/test_all.py
+++ b/tests/loggers/test_all.py
@@ -369,4 +369,4 @@ def test_logger_with_prefix_all(tmpdir, monkeypatch):
     with mock.patch('pytorch_lightning.loggers.wandb.wandb') as wandb:
         logger = _instantiate_logger(WandbLogger, save_idr=tmpdir, prefix=prefix)
         logger.log_metrics({"test": 1.0}, step=0)
-        wandb.init().log.assert_called_once_with({'tmp-test': 1.0}, step=0)
+        logger.experiment.log.assert_called_once_with({'tmp-test': 1.0}, step=0)
diff --git a/tests/loggers/test_wandb.py b/tests/loggers/test_wandb.py
index 468ca819f91b1..33211e6492d91 100644
--- a/tests/loggers/test_wandb.py
+++ b/tests/loggers/test_wandb.py
@@ -23,19 +23,27 @@
 
 
 @mock.patch('pytorch_lightning.loggers.wandb.wandb')
-def test_wandb_logger(wandb):
+def test_wandb_logger_init(wandb):
     """Verify that basic functionality of wandb logger works.
     Wandb doesn't work well with pytest so we have to mock it out here."""
-    logger = WandbLogger(anonymous=True, offline=True)
 
+    # test wandb.init called when there is no W&B run
+    wandb.run = None
+    logger = WandbLogger()
     logger.log_metrics({'acc': 1.0})
+    wandb.init.assert_called_once()
     wandb.init().log.assert_called_once_with({'acc': 1.0}, step=None)
 
+    # test wandb.init not called if there is a W&B run
     wandb.init().log.reset_mock()
+    wandb.init.reset_mock()
+    wandb.run = wandb.init()
+    logger = WandbLogger()
     logger.log_metrics({'acc': 1.0}, step=3)
+    wandb.init.assert_called_once()
     wandb.init().log.assert_called_once_with({'acc': 1.0}, step=3)
 
-    # continue training on same W&B run
+    # continue training on same W&B run and offset step
     wandb.init().step = 3
     logger.finalize('success')
     logger.log_metrics({'acc': 1.0}, step=3)
@@ -67,6 +75,7 @@ class Experiment:
         def project_name(self):
             return 'the_project_name'
 
+    wandb.run = None
     wandb.init.return_value = Experiment()
     logger = WandbLogger(id='the_id', offline=True)