Abby Richter (Katherine Heigl) is a television producer who finds all the men she dates on the downside of boorish. On the verge of giving up on finding true love, her life is complicated when Mike Chadway (Gerard Butler) is brought on to her morning talk show where the hosts Georgia (Cheryl Hines) and Larry (John Michael Higgins) are running the ratings into the ground. Mike is the epitome of all Abby dislikes about men; he is low-brow and provincial, but he becomes a phenomenon on the show. His segment of the show is called “The Ugly Truth.” She even takes his advice on finding a mate. She likes a young doctor named Colin (Eric Winter), and Mike provides her with hints on how to win the physician, though she begins to fall in love with the more vulnerable Chadway when his caveman act wears out.