That's not entirely correct. He was suspended for a long time once and paid a sum of money once. The circumstances are sketchy:
First he stated that he paid $5,000 to Twitter itself,
later he implied that it was an "investment". I think I've also seen him claim that the 5K was for legal fees when pressed by texting atalkers, but you should always take his defensive squealing with a grain of salt.
What you might be thinking of is speculation that he might've paid $5.000 (or some other sum) long before all this in exchange for his checkmark. It's been an open secret that Twitter practices were corrupt and nepotistic and Elon and others have since confirmed it. Rick is and was a complete nobody, so there's a strong possibility that he wasn't eligible for a checkmark and he tried to bribe his way in. There's been talk of Rick having a "contact" at Twitter that's been protecting him but I don't know if I buy that. He was suspended for 10 months until he bought his way back in again, I don't think he had any real friends at the company watching his back, at best a janny intending to squeeze the rube for money.
I think we're all so busy laughing at the fact that he paid $5K to get his account back that we rarely stop to think that, wait a minute, that's
really fucking shady. There's clearly some underhanded shit going on there if they weren't legal fees (and even then it's fucking bizarre). It's also the reason I have seen some people theorize on why he never got his checkmark back: he wasn't ever supposed to have one in the first place. When he oinked/paid enough for them to review his account, it probably came up that he wasn"t eligible for one of them. It would also explain why he's been squealing that his should be reinstated on the grounds of the felony imposter accounts instead of, you know, him being a famous public figure like he was before all the trolling.