40 Fun Facts About Phil Lester

Phil Lester filmed his first YouTube vlog in 2006 on a black-and-white camera he won from what?

A cereal box prize camera recorded the vlog he posted at age 19 in March 2006, which made him one of the first notable British YouTubers.

Phil Lester reached the final round of which British TV game show as a contestant in 2007?

The Weakest Link put him on national television a year after his first vlog, and a film role and an advert followed in 2008.

Phil Lester earned a Guinness World Record in 2011 for the fastest time at which fiddly task?

Stacking coins won him the record when he piled 25 of them on top of each other in 31.617 seconds.

Phil Lester voiced a technician in the UK cinema release of which Disney animated film?

Big Hero 6 gave him and Dan Howell cameos as Technician 1 and 2, but only on the big screen: the UK home release leaves them out.

In Disney Junior's The Lion Guard, Phil Lester voices a prince named Hafifu of which species?

Gorilla princes Hafifu and Majinuni, the second voiced by Dan Howell, turned up in a December 2016 episode called The Lost Gorillas.

In which English city did Phil Lester earn both his bachelor's and master's degrees?

York awarded him a BA in English Language and Linguistics in 2008 and a master's in video postproduction with visual effects a year later.

Which BBC station gave Phil Lester and Dan Howell a Sunday night request show in January 2013?

BBC Radio 1 streamed the show live on video, with music videos made by the audience and physical challenges for the two hosts on air.

Which party board game, based on an icebreaker Phil Lester invented, went on sale in October 2017?

Truth Bombs was published by the games company Big Potato, two years after an app built on one of his video challenges.

Which relative of Phil Lester co-founded the merchandise company IRL Digital with him in 2014?

His brother Martyn, the older of the two, set up the firm with him and Dan Howell to sell merchandise for other media personalities.

What did Phil Lester and Dan Howell reveal in an October 2025 video, 16 years after first meeting?

They are a couple, and have been since 2009: the pair kept the relationship private for nearly 16 years while viewers speculated.

Before they met in person in October 2009, what was Dan Howell's connection to Phil Lester?

A fan of his videos first, Howell messaged Lester online and then posted his own first upload that same October.

Phil Lester came out publicly in a June 2019 video, but had been open in private life since when?

University was when he became open about being gay in his personal life, and his video followed one from Dan Howell earlier that month.

Phil Lester grew up in which Lancashire town at the centre of the Rossendale Valley?

Rawtenstall drew him back in 2021, when he returned to his hometown to film the YouTube original Hometown Showdown.

Which high-street chain employed Phil Lester before fame, alongside dog walking and car washing?

WHSmith sat on a list of early jobs that also included assisting at a veterinary clinic and acting in a British comedy film.

Phil Lester played Tim in which 2008 British comedy film about a Viking battle re-enactor?

Faintheart starred Eddie Marsan as the hobbyist, and its making drew on input from the MySpace community.

Which price comparison site cast Phil Lester in a 2008 advert when he had about 27,000 subscribers?

Confused.com hired him while he was still a student, in the same year as his first film role.

Which Monday night BBC show did Phil Lester co-host once a month from autumn 2014 to spring 2016?

The Internet Takeover gave its other Mondays to a rotation of vloggers, with Lester and Dan Howell live on the first Monday of each month.

Phil Lester and Dan Howell's BBC request show won which Sony Radio Academy prize in May 2013?

The Golden Headphones Award arrived only four months after the show first aired in January 2013.

Phil Lester co-hosted the worldwide YouTube livestream of which UK music ceremony from 2014 to 2016?

Brit Awards duty also had him and Dan Howell filming backstage videos for their own channels.

Which YouTuber created Oscar's Hotel, the web series in which Phil Lester voiced a bacon strip?

PJ Liguori also directed the series, whose puppets came from Jim Henson's Creature Shop; Lester's rasher was called Rash.

Dan and Phil Go Outside, published by Phil Lester and Dan Howell in late 2016, takes what form?

A photo book of candid pictures and stories from their first tour, it went on to top an American bestseller list.

The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire, Phil Lester's first stage show, is named after which two things?

Two channel names, AmazingPhil and Dan Howell's then handle danisnotonfire, were fused for the tour and for the book released the day it opened.

Which West End theatre hosted the final UK shows of Phil Lester's first stage tour in November 2015?

London Palladium dates on 8 and 15 November closed a UK leg that had opened in Glasgow a month earlier.

Phil Lester and Dan Howell released their tour song as a charity single for which campaign?

Stand Up To Cancer received all proceeds from The Internet Is Here, which the pair performed at the climax of the stage show and released as a single in October 2016.

Which Hollywood venue hosted the last US show of Phil Lester's first tour, later released as a film?

The Dolby Theatre show of June 2016 became a YouTube Red original, the first content on that service from British creators.

Phil Lester's 2018 tour Interactive Introverts opened in Brighton and closed in which Indian city?

Mumbai ended a run of 80 shows in 18 countries, among them Poland, the Philippines, Russia and New Zealand.

In which Belgian city did Phil Lester and Dan Howell open their 2024 tour Terrible Influence?

Antwerp launched their first tour since the return of their gaming channel, and extra UK dates were added because of demand.

What is the name of the weekly podcast Phil Lester began hosting with Dan Howell in October 2025?

Hard Launch arrived with the rebrand of their joint channel, formerly DanAndPhilGAMES, and its first episode premiered on 20 October 2025.

Up for a 2021 British LGBT Award, Phil Lester urged viewers to back which rival nominee instead?

Abigail Thorn of Philosophy Tube had come out as transgender that January, and in the end both she and Lester lost to Jessica Kellgren-Fozard.

What is Phil Lester's second YouTube channel called, home of his occasional hour-long live shows?

LessAmazingPhil plays on the name of his main channel and has passed a million subscribers of its own.

Phil Lester joined the 24-hour internet broadcast Stickaid in 2010 to raise money for which charity?

UNICEF was the cause behind Stickaid, an annual live fundraiser that he took part in alongside Dan Howell.

What did Phil Lester and Dan Howell investigate on The Super Amazing Project, their 2011 web show?

Paranormal events drove the show, made for the network My Damn Channel, with viewers sending in scary items for the hosts to react to.

Phil Lester and Dan Howell launched the side channel DanAndPhilCRAFTS in 2015 for which occasion?

April Fools' Day brought a single amateurish video of the pair making square snowflakes out of paper, and the joke returned in later years.

Phil Lester and Dan Howell's gaming channel is known for a popular Let's Play of which game?

The Sims 4 series sits beside Spooky Week and a daily December run among the channel's best-known recurring fixtures.

Which gaming YouTuber guest-starred in the 2023 video that revived Phil Lester's joint channel?

Jacksepticeye appeared in Saying Goodbye Forever, the sketch that ended a hiatus lasting from December 2018.

In which city did Phil Lester and Dan Howell first live together in 2011, before moving to London?

Manchester was their home from August 2011 until July 2012, and the capital has been their base ever since.

What format was the 2009 video that marked Phil Lester's first collaboration with Dan Howell?

A Q&A session titled Phil is not on fire grew into a ten-part series, with one instalment a year until the last in 2018.

In the story of The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire, how does Phil Lester break the internet?

Microwaving his laptop makes its contents explode like popcorn, leaving the pair to perform their online material live on stage.

Under which name did Phil Lester and Dan Howell post a video every day of December until Christmas?

Gamingmas became an annual series on DanAndPhilGAMES, the joint channel they launched in September 2014.

What did Phil Lester and Dan Howell wear to read the Internet News on their BBC request show?

Lensless glasses, which they called their news glasses, came with an orchestral soundtrack in a parody of regular news programmes.