Alec Baldwin denied that his decision to skip the Emmy Awards on Sunday night was because of the cutting of a joke from the ceremony’s opening segment, reports the New York Post.

Baldwin said that the reason he couldn’t make the show was that he had an earlier engagement: attending singer Tony Bennett’s 85th birthday party at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, the story says.

“I skipped the Emmys because of this — because I wanted to be here," Baldwin said while at the birthday celebration.

As previously reported, Baldwin reportedly pulled out of the Emmys broadcast after Fox cut a joke in his pretaped segment about News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Also previously reported, here’s the joke in question.