Dan and Phil finally confirm romantic relationship after YouTuber's ‘hid’ truth for 16 years

Popular YouTubers Dan and Phil have finally confirmed they're in a romantic relationship with each other, telling their fans they've actually been together for 16 years.

The online duo have gained millions of fans since starting their respective careers on YouTube, with them regularly appearing in each other's videos. In 2014, they started collaborating more officially as they launched a joint gaming channel called DanAndPhilGAMES, which quickly amassed several million subscribers.

Both YouTubers came out in 2019 within a few weeks of each other, with Dan coming out as gay and Phil as queer, and their fans wondered if they might actually be an item.

Well, it seems their fans were right, as the duo of YouTubers have now posted a video on a joint channel confirming they've been in a relationship which started when they met in 2009.

They've confirmed that 'Phan' is real (YouTube/Dan and Phil)

The pair said they hadn't formally labelled their relationship but 'fell hard and fast' for each other and 'ended up living together'.

"Alright, let’s get this over with. Are Dan and Phil in a relationship?" Dan said in the video, with Phil responding simply 'yes'.

Explaining more about their relationship, the popular YouTubers went into a bit more detail about their life together and the realities of dating they'd had to face.

“We’re partners in everything. And no, it’s not always perfect. Don’t get into your head that we are the ideal of human partnerships," Phil said as he spoke about life with his partner.

Dan added that he had 'felt we had to hide the relationship because I was still hiding who I was to my friends, family, myself', and said one of the reasons why they hadn't spoken about it before is because he 'wouldn't handle people's reactions'.

The duo said they hadn't announced it sooner because they'd wanted to be known as collaborators over being a couple, with Dan saying: "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."

He said there were some practical concerns as 'there's a lot of straight guys that would simply have never watched us on YouTube because it made them uncomfortable'.

While the couple have now confirmed their relationship they've made it clear they don't want to turn it into another stream of content as Phil said they would avoid 'selling the perfect relationship on Instagram'.

They've made it clear that the more private details of their relationship aren't going to be shared out, as 'that is not yours', and they're going to be releasing the content they want to make rather than turning into 'couple vloggers', as they wanted to maintain some boundaries between their relationship and their fans.