After years of fan speculation, YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester have confirmed they’re dating – and have been for 16 years.
In a new video on their joint platform Dan and Phil, the pair, who together have millions of followers across their various platforms, revealed that their secret relationship began when they met in 2009.
Dan and Phil, who both came out as gay in 2019 weeks apart, ‘fell hard and fast’ for each other, so much so that they never formally labelled their relationship but ‘ended up living together’.
‘Alright, let’s get this over with. Are Dan and Phil in a relationship?’ Howell teased, to which Lester responded with a simple: ‘Yes.’
‘Alright, bye!’ Dan joked, before returning to the frame and saying: ‘Oh, sorry, you wanted more, did you? You want the juice? The tea, the blood, the tears?’
‘We fell into it hard and fast in 2009, and here we are almost 16 years later,’ Dan explained, to which Phil responded: ‘Stop telling me how long it was. So yeah, relationship, boyfriends.’
In his mid-20s, Dan, 34, admitted he was so ‘deep in the closet’ that he ‘felt we had to hide the relationship because I was still hiding who I was to my friends, family, myself.’
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‘A big reason why I’ve been like I never wanna talk about this is I wouldn’t handle people’s reactions,’ he added.
Phil, meanwhile, felt like I’d gone back in a mini closet in a way, which was weird.’
‘I knew this was all very sensitive, uncomfortable, and scary for you,’ the 38-year-old said. ‘So I kind of just wanted to give you time to figure out what you wanted to do.’
Dan Howell and Phil Lester’s relationship timeline
- 2009: Dan and Phil met in October and instantly hit it off, beginning their working and secret romantic relationship.
- 2011: Dan and Phil moved in together, relocating to London a year later.
- 2014: Dan and Phil launch their joint YouTube channel DanAndPhilGAMES
- 2018: After their Interactive Introverts tour, they pursued separate projects. Dan released his book You Will Get Through This Night and went on a solo comedy tour, We’re All Doomed, in 2022. Meanwhile, Phil grew his solo channel AmazingPhil.
- 2019: Dan and Phil both come out as gay weeks apart
- 2024: The pair reunited with their third tour Terrible Influence, which wrapped in 2025. They also rebotted their gaming channel, which went on hiatus in 2018.
- Late 2025: Dan and Phil are set to release a podcast together
Another reason the pair kept their relationship under wraps was that they wanted to be professionally known as a comedy duo, rather than a couple.
‘Who’s to say there’s anything wrong with having the cute gay couple show? It’s just that we wanted the focus to be on what we were doing,’ Dan said, as Phil agreed: ‘Being funny, entertaining. Let’s be honest, there’s a lot of homophobia out there.’
Dan also reflected that there are ‘straight guys’ who would ‘never’ have watched their YouTube content because their relationship would ‘make them uncomfortable’.
After ’15 years of suppressing stories and opinions’ the duo, who are thought of as some of the original YouTubers, also announced they are launching a Dan and Phil podcast.
Having gone on a YouTube hiatus, Dan returned to the channel with a viral 50-minute video titled Basically, I’m Gay in June 2019, which has since clocked up 13m views.
In it, he generously talked through his struggles with accepting his sexuality, the toxic internet gossip about his personal life and his battle with clinical depression and anxiety.
‘Everyone was wondering “what’s going on in Dan Howell’s personal life”, all these conspiracy theories and it was this weird elephant in the room that I wasn’t talking about,’ Dan said, on feeling grateful in a way of the speculation surrounding his personal life.
‘The reality is, I was dealing with so much internalised homophobia because of my childhood, that was such a huge thing for me to confront,’ he explained.
‘I don’t think I would have ever had the nerve to actually confront something that difficult if I wasn’t in a position where I had this audience looking up to me. I think I would have gone on another 10 years. I would have been a depressed 42-year-old lawyer, deeply in the closet.’
Weeks later, Phil also came out in a YouTube video titled Coming Out To You.
‘There is something quite big I’ve been meaning to tell you guys,’ he said. ‘I’m gay, and depending on who you are, you might’ve known, or it could’ve been a surprise… surprise! That’s how I should’ve come out to my parents.
‘Even if you don’t totally relate to my story, you might learn something or change your view, or just feel like you’re not alone with something you went through. I’m gay! It’s great! I’m happy!’
Phil added: ‘And hopefully you’re happy for me too. If not, I hope you have a think about why you want a fellow human to be unhappy. And not true to who they are. And if that is a healthy mindset to have.’
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