Meghan Markle’s interview with Ellen DeGeneres: All the highlights

It’s Meghan Markle as you rarely see her. The Duchess sat down for an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, where she engaged in one of her awkward skits.

Meghan Markle has sat down for a surprise interview with Ellen DeGeneres.

The Duchess of Sussex, 40, stunned the audience who had no idea she was a special guest, before engaging in a series of Ellen’s signature pranks.

The pair also discussed enjoying a friendship as neighbours in California: “Meghan’s a great dancer,” Ellen told the audience.

The fluffy interview opened rather awkwardly when Ellen introduced Meghan as “the Duchess of Sussex” while plugging her children’s book The Bench, to which Meghan let out a stifled giggle.

Meghan pranks street vendors

It wouldn’t be the Ellen show without a few embarrassing skits, and Meghan was no exception.

Ellen fit Meghan with an earpiece and tasked her with pranking street vendors on the Warner Bros. studio lot, in an earlier filmed clip which was played to the audience.

A clearly recognisable Meghan, who was not in disguise for the stunt, first targeted a crystal stall, with Ellen urging Meghan to say she has “healing powers” to the seller while musing at the crystals on display. “Good energy!” Meghan said as she hovered over the display.

Ellen then asked Meghan to hold one of the crystals against her head and chant.

Meghan told the vendor she has “healing powers”.

Over at a hot dog vendor, DeGeneres ordered Meghan to eat a tortilla chip “like a chipmunk” as the audience watched on in fits of laughter.

“Mummy wants some heat!” Meghan screamed at the vendor, as per Ellen’s direction.

She also performed squats on the sidewalk and casually drank from a baby bottle in her handbag as vendors watched on in disbelief.

Meghan gives rare insight into family life

Meghan showed a rare photo of her and Prince Harry’s two-year-old son, Archie, feeding chickens at their Montecito estate.

The pair have been ultra private about their children, having only ever shared photos of Archie from behind, while they’re yet to release a photo of Lilibet Diana, who was born in June.

Meghan showed a rarely seen photo of her two-year-old son, Archie.

After moving to the US last year, Meghan told the TV host she wanted to celebrate Halloween this year with her growing family of four, saying she dressed Archie up as a dinosaur and Lilibet as a skunk “like Flower from Bambi”.

“We wanted to do something fun for the kids, and then the kids were just not into it at all,” Meghan said, before Ellen - who spent Halloween with the Sussexes - added that Archie wore the costume for “not even five minutes”.

Meghan said witnessing her husband of three years be a father was “the most beautiful thing to watch”, adding Archie had relished in becoming a big brother despite the significant adjustment.

“I think it’s just, everyone tells you — well, someone told H and I, ‘When you have one kid it’s a hobby, and two children is parenting,’ ” she said.

“Suddenly we realised, ‘Oh, right.’ Everyone talks about what it’s like for the second child, but no one talks about the adjustment for the first child when the second one comes along. So I think they have this moment of, ‘Oh, this is fun. Oh, this how it is now.’ ”

Having lived in the UK for most of his life, Meghan said Harry “loves” living in the US.

“He loves it,” Meghan said. “We moved here during lockdown, exactly when things shut down, so we’ve just been able to spend a lot of time at home and creating our home, but I think it’s just the lifestyle and the weather is pretty great. But we’re just happy.”

Meghan reveals wild night out with Harry

Elsewhere in the interview, Meghan revealed she and Harry attended a Halloween party in disguise in 2016 before their relationship became public.

The Duchess told Ellen they were in Toronto, where she was filming Suits, when they decided to go incognito for a night on the town with fellow royal Princess Eugenie and her now-husband, Jack Brooksbank.

“[Harry] came to see me in Toronto and our friends and his cousin Eugenie and now her husband Jack – they came as well,” she said.

“The four of us snuck out in Halloween costumes to just have one fun night on the town before it was out in the world that we were a couple.

“It was a post-apocalypse theme so we had all of this very bizarre costuming on and we were able to just have one final fun night out.

Meghan and Harry went incognito at a Halloween party. Picture: Ellen

Meghan and Harry, 37, met on a blind date in July 2016, before their relationship began being speculated in September that year. It wasn’t until November, shortly after Halloween, that Harry confirmed their relationship when he issued a press release detailing his concerns about the press’ “abuse and harassment” toward his new partner.

Meghan’s political push

While most of the interview was fairly light-hearted, Meghan talked about paid parental leave in the US, which she has been openly pushing for for weeks, including reports she cold called senators.

“As a mum of two I will do everything that I can to make sure we can implement [paid family leave],” she said.

“People truly forget that or don’t even know it’s (the US) one of only six wealthy countries in the world that does not mandate and have a federal paid leave program.

“I will do everything I can to make sure we can implement that for people.”

Toward the end of the segment, Meghan gifted audience member Brittany Starks with $US20,000 for her non-profit, A Twist of Greatness.

The single mother began braiding children’s hair in her Tennessee neighbourhood for free this year, before starting her charity which provides children with books and clothes.

“This has been so much fun, thank you,” Meghan told Ellen as they danced to the closing credits.

Originally published as Meghan Markle’s interview with Ellen DeGeneres: All the highlights