Rubi

Rubí is a Mexican telenovela produced by José Alberto Castro for Televisa. It is based on a short story by Yolanda Vargas Dulché, published as a serial on the 1960s Mexican comic book Lágrimas, Risas y Amor. Bárbara Mori stars as a dual protagonist/antagonist, Rubí.

Canal de las Estrellas aired Rubí from May 17 to October 22, 2004, with Apuesta por un amor replacing it. Univision broadcast Rubí from September 20, 2004 to March 7, 2005, and has named Rubí as the top telenovela of all time.

Rubí Pérez (Bárbara Mori) is a beautiful but poor woman. She studies at an exclusive university because of the efforts of Cristina, her older sister, and a scholarship. Rubí is best friends with Maribel de la Fuente (Jacqueline Bracamontes), a nice and wealthy young woman who has a small defect in her leg, which prevents her from having a normal social life. Rubí is actually jealous of Maribel's status.

Rubí eventually meets Maribel's boyfriend Héctor Ferrer (Sebastián Rulli), an architect, and his best friend Alejandro Cárdenas (Eduardo Santamarina), a doctor. She is intrigued by Héctor because she knows he is very rich, and marrying a rich man has always been her ambition in order to leave poverty behind. However, she finds herself falling in love with Alejandro. Héctor and Maribel get engaged. Rubí starts dating Alejandro, but when she finds out that he comes from middle-class background and is not rich, she decides to dump him, though it breaks her heart. She then decides to seduce Héctor.

Héctor falls quickly under Rubí's spell. On Héctor and Maribel's wedding day, Héctor leaves a desolate Maribel at the altar, and elopes with Rubí instead. Now Rubí finally has the lifestyle and money that she has always dreamed of. Nevertheless, she is still in love with Alejandro, although he assures her that he would never forgive her for what she did to Maribel.

Héctor decides to travel the world with Rubí, since he is not entirely sure she has gotten over Alejandro. They are away for three years, and when they return, Rubí discover that Alejandro is now very rich, and engaged to a woman named Sonia. Sonia dies after having an argument with Rubí on a glass bridge. Rubí now seduces Alejandro again, brings him comfort after Sonia's death, so he and Rubí become lovers.

When he learns that Rubí had been with Sonia when the latter died, he sends Rubí to prison for it. They seem to hate each other now, but Rubí begins to feel love for him again when she discovers she is expecting his child. Because she does not want to divorce Héctor and lose her money and status, she lies and tells Héctor that the baby is his. She is released from prison, since it is found that Sonia's death was due to her falling through the glass bridge.

Héctor overhears Rubí telling her friend Loreto that the child is actually Alejandro's. Angry and humiliated, Héctor realizes that she never loved him and holds her prisoner in her own house. Rubí manages to get away from Héctor, and the truth finally comes out that Alejandro is the father of her child. Alejandro is now aware that Maribel has been secretly in love with him and that he is also very fond of her, but he decides to stay with Rubí for the sake of their baby.

Sometime later, Rubí saves her niece Fernanda from getting hit by a car; Rubí is hit instead and has a miscarriage. She blames Héctor for the miscarriage, since he has hit her before because of his jealousy. Héctor tries to prove that Rubí actually lost her baby after being hit by a car, but only Eelena, a woman who is the assistant to the Count of Aragón, believes him, since she is love with Héctor. Héctor is hurt in a car accident and dies before he could tell Alejandro, who is operating on him trying to save his life, the truth about Rubí.

Héctor left everything in his will to Rubí much to his parent's chagrin. But Elena, who hates Rubí, makes sure that Rubí's money is all lost in the stock market. Alejandro is released from prison and finds out how Rubí lost their baby. It is also revealed that Elena is expecting Héctor's child, though he never knew it.

Alejandro pays Rubí a visit one last time, disgusted by the damage she has done, and tells her that it is over between them: He has chosen Maribel. Rubí begs him not to leave her, even humiliating herself by getting on her knees. He leaves her and begins to walk down the stairs. As Rubí follows him, screaming that she will never let him go and running down the staircase while holding onto the rail, she loses her grip on the rail, falls down several stories, and crashes into a glass table below.

To save her life, doctors had to amputate her leg. When Rubí wakes up, she finds out to her horror that her leg was amputated; even more devastating to her, she sees that her beautiful face is now full of scars from where the glass cut in. Rubí escapes from the hospital

Finding the wedding date of Alejandro and Maribel, she shows up unseen, and draws a gun through a crack on a door, aiming at Alejandro but then being unable to shoot him. She then aims for Maribel, but her sister Cristina, Maribel's maid of honor, gets in the way. Rubí hides in a corner of the churchyard, despondent.

After the wedding, her niece Fernanda wanders over, and Rubí shows her scarred face, but Fernanda is not repulsed by it. On the contrary, she sympathizes with her favorite aunt. When Rubí asks her if she would like to continue meeting her secretly and taking her advice on how to get what she wants using her beauty, Fernanda happily agrees. Rubí is then seen limping away, dressed in rags.

Years later Fernanda is all grown up, with a striking resemblance to Rubí. She visits her aunt, who is now living in a one-room flat. After hearing that Alejandro has returned to Mexico after years of living abroad, Rubí tells Fernanda that Alejandro and Maribel have a son, and that her job will be to make both the father and the son fall in love with her and drive them to such a state of passion that they are willing to kill each other for her love, thus destroying Maribel's heart and getting revenge on Alejandro.

Alejandro heads to his office, where he finds Fernanda inside waiting for him. He is utterly shocked, mistaking her for Rubí. She greets him, without revealing her identity, winks at the camera, closes the office door, and kisses a quite surprised but not entirely unwilling Alejandro. The caption, The End..?