It seems like 2025 is the year of confirming long-standing rumored relationships. We saw it with Troye Sivan and Connor Franta earlier this summer, and now YouTubers Dan Howell and Phil Lester, who just confirmed they've been boyfriends for over a decade in a new video uploaded on Sunday. - YouTube www.youtube.com The two have been creating YouTube videos since 2006, and throughout their entire online career, there has been speculation that they are a couple. In a new video uploaded to YouTube on Sunday, the two confirmed theyve been in a relationship since about 2009. Their fans consistently made fan fiction about the two being in a relationship and shipped (an internet term for wishing two people were a couple) them together, with the ship name Phan. After years of making videos as best friends, the two shared that they've actually been together this whole time. (@) Alright, let's get this over with. Are Dan and Phil in a relationship? Howell starts the video out by saying, to which Lester says, Yes and the two jokingly attempt to end the video and walk out of frame. Oh, sorry, you wanted more, did you? they say before diving into the details of their relationship and why theyve kept it private all these years.Howell says that the two "fell into it hard and fast in 2009" and they've been partners for close to 16 years, adding, "It was so fast that we never labeled it. We just ended up living together and here we are." (@) But they were young when they first started seeing each other and there was a lot that was being hidden from their families that they decided to keep their partnership a secret, which made dealing with the dating conspiracy theories from fans difficult. "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 said in the video. "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."He continued, "And what we had was the most important thing to me and I wanted to protect it, so when other people tried to grab it and drag it into the light, I felt completely violated... Having all of these people trying to out us, and being so hostile to me when I tried to hide it, was so triggering. Honestly, it could have killed me."Now that the secret is out, the two plan to continue keeping their content the same and now transform their joint channel into a couple's account. In the video Lester says, "But if you'll have us, we'd love to just finally be ourselves and do what we love, which is really how this should have been this whole time. (@)