African-American actress Paula Patton refused to take her teenage sweetheart Robin Thicke as her date to her high school prom because she feared the reaction they would receive as an interracial couple.

The Blurred Lines hitmaker, 36, reveals the stars had to keep their relationship under wraps during their youth to avoid any potential racial backlash.

During a candid interview with shock jock Howard Stern, he says, "The funny thing is, in high school she didn't take me to prom, her prom, because she didn't want everyone to know she was with a white guy because she was president of the Black Student Union.

"I was a secret. She didn't want to show up with a white guy. Funny right?"

The couple eventually went public with the romance and wed in 2005. Thicke and Patton are now parents to a baby son named Julian.