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Justin Trudeau challenges Friends' Matthew Perry to rematch fight

Justin Trudeau and Matthew Perry went to school together - Rex
Justin Trudeau and Matthew Perry went to school together - Rex

The Canadian prime minister has challenged Friends star Matthew Perry to a fight, in a cheek-in-tongue message on Twitter.

Justin Trudeau, a keen boxer, joked on Twitter on April Fool's Day: "I've been giving it some thought, and you know what, who hasn't wanted to punch Chandler? How about a rematch Matthew Perry?" 

The athletic Mr Trudeau, who has worked as a bouncer and as a snowboarding instructor before getting into politics, famously "pummelled" Canadian Conservative Patrick Brazeau in a charity boxing match in 2012.  A newspaper reported how he “pounded his foe into submission with a series of unschooled but powerful haymakers”.

The actor, who played Chandler in the popular sitcom, gave a different reason than the prime minister's boxing skills as he politely declined the offer: "I think I will pass at your request for a rematch kind sir (given that you currently have an army at your disposal)".

The exchange came after Perry, who was born in the US but raised in Ottawa, claimed that he once "beat up" the politician when they were in primary school together.

"I have a story about him that I'm not proud of," the actor said on the Jimmy Kimmel Live talk show.

Perry said he "beat up" Mr Trudeau, whose father  Pierre Elliott Trudeau was prime minister at the time, when he was in fifth grade.

The actor said that, he thinks, he beat up the younger Trudeau with a friend because they were jealous of some sporting achievement. "I think he was excelling in a sport," the actor said.

"I'm not bragging about this, this terrible. I was a stupid kid," Perry told Kimmel. "I didn't wan't to beat him up. In fact at one point I think I tried to turn it into a love play."

"But I think I was instrumental to him going to such great heights and becoming the prime minister," Perry then joked.

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