After years of online speculation from fans, YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester are ready to set the record straight on their relationship status.
“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Dan, 34, shared in a YouTube video posted Monday, October 13. “Are Dan and Phil in a relationship?”
Phil, 38, replied that the answer is yes.
“I think a lot of people want to know everything,” he continued. “One of the biggest conspiracies in the history of the internet is ‘Phan’ real?”
According to the couple — who earned the nickname “Phan” from their first names — they fell “hard and fast” for each other in 2009 when they first started recording YouTube videos together.
“It’s partly our fault,” Phil joked about all the speculation surrounding their relationship. “We started filming YouTube videos together on the day we met. I would not recommend that. I’m just saying maybe, like, leave it a week.”
As for Dan, he never imagined that filming videos for the platform would turn into a career with thousands of fans dissecting every clip.
“How sad that we were just authentically being ourselves. We never planned to be superstars and to have all of these people scrutinizing us,” he explained. “We were just using social media innocently, filming whatever videos we wanted. Putting it out there, expressing ourselves.”
Dan Howell and Phil Lester Tara Ziemba/WireImage
“I think now there’s more of an understanding that anything you post on Tumblr will be dug up by your future employer,” Dan continued while laughing. “Back then, we were just living free.”
While the pair acknowledged that they both were aware of some fans speculating about their status, Dan said he focused more on the chatter than Phil.
“They wanted nothing more than for ‘Phan’ to be real, and me saying no meant that it was, like, I was some evil showrunner that was stopping their favorite character from having the gay story line that they wanted,” he explained. “Except I’m not the writer of the Dan Show. I’m literally Dan.”
While Phil tried to explain to his longtime friend that “not everyone” was talking about their relationship, it wasn’t that easy to completely drown out the noise.
Privately, the couple said their relationship was far from perfect. Dan said they had “ups and downs” that wouldn’t be shown in their YouTube videos.
“Like anybody, if you’re a mess, we are a mess. We are weird,” he said. “We are a bizarre example of a relationship. Like, we’ve been attached at the hip 24/7 for 15 years.”
But now that the YouTubers — who each came out separately in June 2019 — have shared their truth with the world, they promise to keep people laughing online. In other words, don’t expect a ton of couples content.
“A big thing with sharing the details of your personal life is how it affects what you do,” Dan explained. “Because Dan and Phil, the comedy duo and Dan and Phil, the gay boyfriends, it hits different.”
Phil added, “We’d love to just finally be ourselves and do what we love, which is really how this should have been this whole time.”
