Prince Harry "pretended" he didn't know his then-girlfriend Meghan Markle when they went supermarket shopping in the early days of their relationship.

Prince Harry

Prince Harry

The 36-year-old royal and his now-wife - who was titled the Duchess of Sussex after the couple married two years ago - went to great lengths to keep their romance under wraps and communicated by text message between the aisles when stocking up for a break together for the first time.

Speaking to Dax Shepard on his 'Armchair Expert' podcast, Harry said: “The first time Meghan and I met up for her to come and stay with me, we met up in a supermarket in London, pretending we didn't know each other, texting each other from the other side of the aisles.

“There's people looking at me, giving me all these weird looks, and coming up to me and saying 'hi’.

“I texted her saying, 'Is this the right one', and she said, 'No you want parchment paper,' and 'I'm like where's the parchment paper?!'

"I had baseball cap on, looking down at the floor, trying to stay incognito. It's amazing how much chewing gum you see, it's a mess!"

Harry, Meghan, and their two-year-old son Archie stepped back from royal duties and moves to Los Angeles last year and now the prince - who will become a father for the second time in the coming months - admitted his life in the US feels "more free" than it did when he was in the UK.

He said: “Living here now I can actually lift my head and actually I feel different, my shoulders have dropped, so has hers, you can walk around feeling a little bit more free.

“I can take Archie on the back of my bicycle. I never had the chance to do that.”