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Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a morning show TV producer in Sacramento, California. Coming home from a disastrous date one night, she happens to see a segment of a local television show, "The Ugly Truth", run by Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler), whose cynicism about relationships prompts Abby to call into the show to argue with him on-air. The next day, she discovers that the station is threatening to cancel her show because of its poor ratings, and the station owner has hired Mike to do a segment on her show to bring them back up.

At first, the two have a rocky relationship; Abby thinks Mike is crass and disgusting while Mike finds Abby to be a control freak. Nevertheless, when she meets the man of her dreams, a doctor named Colin (Eric Winter) living next to her, Mike persuades her to follow his lead. She agrees to his helpful advice and if he can get her the man she wants, proving his theories on relationships, she will work happily with him, but if Mike fails, he agrees to quit.[2]

Mike succeeds in improving the ratings of the show, helps bring the married co-anchors closer together, and successfully guides Abby to be exactly what Colin would want. Mike is invited to appear on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and is being offered the chance to move to another network. Abby is forced to cancel a romantic weekend away with Colin, during which they had planned to finally sleep together, and instead go with Mike and persuade him to stay with the morning show. After the show, they go for drinks and dancing, and Mike admits he doesn't want to move and is happier to stay in Sacramento with his sister and nephew. In the elevator, they passionately kiss and almost get to the point of intense sex but leave for their separate rooms when the doors open. Mike, dealing with his inner conflict of the intensity of his feelings for Abby, calls on her room only to find Colin has shown up to surprise her. He leaves Abby to be with Colin. Abby is upset and soon realizes Colin only likes the woman she has been pretending to be, not the real her, and she breaks up with him.

Mike leaves for another local station, but ends up doing an outside broadcast at the same hot-air balloon festival as Abby, and he cannot resist returning to argue with her when she kicks the new "Mike Chadway" imitator off the air and goes into a tirade about men. The balloon they are standing in takes off while they argue and finally, Abby tells Mike she broke up with Colin, and Mike admits he loves her. Abby then kisses him and they are shown kissing passionately while flying off in the balloon. Despite their obvious differences, they stay together and at the end of the movie, are shown having intense sex. Mike, unsure of whether he's taught Abby how to fake too well, asks if her response at climax was genuine after the lights are switched on. Abby responds by smiling and saying he'll never know before shutting off the lights again.