Independent to take a seat rejecting suspicious initial help, or so the story goes (2,2,4)

'so the story goes' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'independent to take a seat rejecting suspicious initial help' is the wordplay.
'independent' becomes 'i'.
'to take a seat' becomes 'sit' (I've seen this before).
'rejecting' says the letters should be written backwards.
'initial' says to take the initial letters.
'help' becomes 'aid' (synonyms).
The first letter of 'suspicious' is 's'.
'sit' written backwards gives 'tis'.
'i'+'tis'+'s'+'aid'='IT IS SAID'

'or' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?