Sean Hannity seemed genuinely stoked earlier this month when he heard that he won the William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence, an honor presented by conservative group Media Research Center.

But now that CNN is reporting that Hannity was disinvited from the award ceremony after William F. Buckley's son expressed dismay over the chosen recipient, the Fox News host is claiming that he turned down the award due to a scheduling conflict.

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CNN's Jake Tapper reported Friday that Christopher Buckley called the Media Research Center to voice his disapproval with Hannity winning the award.

William F. Buckley, the namesake of the award, was the founder of National Review, an intellectual conservative magazine that, to this day, has tried to distance itself from the conservatism promoted on right-wing outlets such as Fox News and Breitbart. Conservative writers like Bret Stephens lambasted the Media Research Center's decision to award a political commentator such as Hannity, who has all but abandoned his conservative principles in his vigorous defense of President Donald Trump.

CNN reported that the Media Research Center allowed Hannity to save face by saying that a scheduling conflict led to his name being removed from the gala's itinerary.

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Christopher Buckley laughed at the excuse in a statement to CNN.

"Perhaps Mr. Hannity has been offered the Ronald Reagan Great Communicator Award on the same evening and had decided to leverage upwards," he joked.

Hannity took to Twitter Friday to push his scheduling-conflict excuse. He also attacked CNN for reporting the story.

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While Hannity pretends he never truly cared about the honor in the first place, anonymous Twitter personality Kilgore Trout noted that the Fox News host gave a mini-acceptance speech after the award was announced.