Sean 'Diddy' Combs woke up in prison "with a knife to his throat"

Charlucci told the Daily Mail online: "He woke up with a knife to his throat. I don't know whether he fought him off or the guards came, I just know that it happened."

But Charlucci believes the alleged incident was designed to scare the I'll Be Missing You hitmaker, rather than hurt him.

He added: "If this guy had wanted to harm him, Sean would have been harmed. It would only take a second to cut his throat with a weapon and kill him.

"It was probably a way to say, 'Next time you ain't gonna be so lucky.' Everything is intimidation. But with Sean it won't work. Sean is from Harlem."

The 60-year-old producer is constantly worried about his friend because he fears he will always be a target for fellow inmates.

He said: "Sean has kept a lot of this stuff to himself because he doesn't want to worry his family. But if you're in jail and you've been charged with anything sexual it's not a good place to be.

"The prisoners take it personal. They look at it like, it could have been my mom, my auntie, my daughter. They try to get what they call prison justice.

"And you have to understand, we are not talking about a regular person. We're talking about Diddy."

But Charlucci is confident his friend is "unbreakable" and maintained his innocence.

He said: "All this stuff that came out, the drugs and the abuse, I wasn't privy to that. Neither were his children. Around us Sean was a lovable caregiver, a father, brother, a best friend.

"The sex trafficking didn't stick because the jury was smart enough to understand that this was not sex trafficking. This was a guy and his girlfriend freaking off. That's it. Period.

"I'm confident he's gonna do whatever it takes to make sure he's still Sean Combs when he comes out. He's not gonna lose a step. Sean is unbreakable."