London, Aug 3 (IANS): "Slumdog Millionaire" stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto deliberately kept their real-life romance under wraps because they feared it would take the attention away from the film, Patel has revealed.

The pair began dating after they met on the sets of the multiple Oscar-winning movie, but they went to huge efforts to stop news of their relationship leaking to the media, reports imdb.com.

Patel admits he feared their romance would be dismissed as "marketing" and a "product" of the film and he was surprised the public's interest in the couple waned after they confirmed their relationship.

"The talk was all about the film at that time and we were not going to come out as some kind of product. We were not doing it for marketing. If we could, we would probably have kept it totally under wraps," he said.

"But there comes a point when you get more attention from the 'Are they, aren't they?' debate. So we figured that 'All right, everyone knows now'. Once we did come out ,the attention died down and that is great," he added.