YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester say that it felt like a "weight had been lifted" as soon as they came out as a couple.
The pair, who has been creating YouTube videos since 2006, apparently fell in love in 2009 and have been a couple ever since. But they only recently decided to share the news publicly, posting a YouTube video to their channel last week that got over 300,000 likes.
In the video, they also announced their new podcast, Hard Launch With Dan and Phil, which premiered on Monday. In the first episode, the longtime creative partners, who both came out as gay in 2019, open up about how their own hard launch went.
"Can I say posting that video felt like a huge relief?" Howell asks Lester on the podcast, according to People. "I just felt like a weight had been lifted. I was worried I was gonna post it, or we were gonna post it and be like, 'Oh, no. We've made a huge mistake."
During the episode, Howell also relays how his therapist encouraged him to announce the relationship publicly, saying, "Dan, you need to stop being scared and just rip the plaster off." And he jokes about the news being fodder for memes.
"Obviously, people have processed the news that Dan and Phil have hard launched in different ways personally, and very few of them were sincere because the memes were too good," Howell says. "Actually, I feel like if people were saying beautiful, articulate things, it just got buried under hilarity."
When they announced their relationship in the literally titled YouTube video last Monday, Howell and Lester approached the matter with a similar, goodnatured sense of self-deprecation.
“Alright, let's get this over with. Are Dan and Phil in a relationship?” Howell says at the start of the video, with Lester quickly answering in the affirmative. They both then jokingly walk out of frame — before saying, "Oh sorry, you wanted more, did you?" and returning to spill the details of their 16-year relationship.
They explain that they were young when they started dating and felt a lot of pressure from multiple sources.
"In my mid 20s, I felt we had to hide the relationship because I was still hiding who I was to my friends, family, myself," Howell says. "This is why all of the digging from people online hit a nerve, because Phil was my safe space. You were my first boyfriend... You were a literal ray of light in my life back then."
