Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, led tributes to Friends actor Matthew Perry, who was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on Friday.

“Matthew Perry’s passing is shocking and saddening,” Mr Trudeau, who went to school with the Hollywood star, said.

“I’ll never forget the schoolyard games we used to play, and I know people around the world are never going to forget the joy he brought them,” he added.

“Thanks for all the laughs, Matthew. You were loved and you will be missed.”

Mr Trudeau and the actor both attended Rockcliffe Park Public School, an elementary school in Ottawa, Canada, where Perry once recounted he “beat up” the future Canadian leader.

Once one of the biggest television stars in the world, Perry, 54, was discovered after apparently drowning in a hot tub at his home.

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman told The Telegraph that officers attended £5.5 million mansion in the Pacific Palisades area at 4.10 pm on Friday afternoon and were investigating his death.

 “We responded to the 1800 block of Blue Sail Rd for a death investigation of a male in his fifties,” the force said.

Perry played Chandler in all 234 episodes of the sitcom Friends, which ran for 10 series from 1994 to 2004.

The show transformed his life, catapulting him and his co-stars to fame as it became one of the most successful in TV history, paying each of the five stars £824,500 per episode by the end of the 10th series.

Perry was three years older than Mr Trudeau and, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2017, he recalled beating him up.

He said: “I was reminded of this by my friend Chris Murray, who was also in the fifth grade in Canada. He reminded me we actually beat up Justin Trudeau.”

“We both beat him up. I think he was excelling in a sport that we weren’t, so it was pure jealousy.”

The actor said he was not proud of his behaviour in bullying Mr Trudeau, whose father Pierre was the Canadian prime minister at the time.

Years later, Mr Trudeau made light of the incident.

“I’ve been giving it some thought and you know what, who hasn’t wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch?”

While Perry enjoyed professional success, his personal life was troubled as he battled with addiction to painkillers, triggered by a jet ski accident.

He was hooked on Vicodin, at one point taking 55 pills a day, and checked into rehab 15 times.

In his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, published in November 2022, Perry said he attended 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and underwent stomach surgery 14 times, which he said made his bowels look like “the topography of China”.