Do we like Phil Lester?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a few good deeds, but the reporting is thin on causes and campaigns, so it stops short of the top.
The upside of that rough moment is that his friends were accepting and his family followed. When he came out properly in a video on 30 June 2019, the last day of Pride Month, it pulled in 1.4 million views in under a day. He said he hoped his story would help others, and that he believes the world is getting more accepting.
Years of fan speculation about him and Dan Howell, his long-time YouTube partner, ended in October 2025 when they confirmed in a video that they are a couple. Phil said of the early days, “It was so fast that we never labeled it.” Reports say they have been together for almost 16 years, since 2009.
The harm check came up clean, and that is the whole list. Searches for him on trans people, women, migrants, climate, vaccines and the like found no harmful comments or campaigns of his own. We also found no co-stars or studios that raise a flag. The caveat is that he mostly keeps politics out of his output, so there is less to test than for a loud commentator.
On the good stuff, for Phil's birthday in January 2024 he and Dan ran a two-hour livestream that raised about $83,000 for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, mostly in small fan donations. Whether you read that as straightforward humanitarian aid or as a position on a contested conflict is up to you, but the fundraising was real. Their podcast, Hard Launch, has also been open about their coming-out experiences.
The pair dealt with fans pushing the relationship rumours for years. Reports say they said they hold no grudge against the young fans who pushed those theories. In an Instagram post after the reveal they thanked fans for their messages and kept the tone light. That is a gentle, non-vindictive way to handle a fandom that had crossed some lines.