The said thing can also mean you heavily implied it, but never said it. Alex Jones relies on that a lot, saying he never encourages offensive violence, then goes on diatribes about how you're already under attack and they're coming to kill you now and yes God should be the one to kill them bur also God uses men as instruments of his will so maybe if you feel like you're an instrument of God's will you're probably right.
Also the version I learned was:
"I never said he stole my money."
In this version every one of them gives the idea that the accusation of stolen or somehow maligned property occurred, except in the case of never. That one is just straight up denying most of it.
I kinda mumbled them at first, but I must have had too much fun and said the last one too loudly, because now the TSA would very much like to know who my intended assassination target is, who got killed in stead and whether I have any bottles of liquid.
Show someone 100 years ago that this is something someone wrote with full seriousness, and that it's grammatically correct. I wonder what they would think of us and our state of language.
Joke on "importance of proper stress/emphasis" with original phrase "I never said she stole my money". One of the cooler parts of languages like English.