Joan Rivers likes cheese. The enigmatic, piercingly honest comedic trailblazer with age and gravity-defying looks will be making a stop at Madison’s Overture Center Oct. 23, and along with delivering a night of laughs, the icon plans to indulge in our state’s most cherished dairy delight.

“I’m a cheese addict,” Rivers said in a recent interview with the Badger Herald. “Give me some cheese and a glass of wine and I’m a happy lady.”

As a comedian who honed her own style of righteously frank humor while some of us were still babes in utero, the legendary comedy hall-of-famer, now 77, describes her upcoming Madison performance as more of a party.

“We’ll just gossip and have fun and get ready to shake it up,” Rivers said in her signature raspy voice. “It will be very very very very funny… add two more verys.”

This appearance tour comes only months after her documentary “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” (Ricki Stern, Anne Sundberg) debuted. The filmmakers followed Rivers for one year, revealing rarely exposed moments of her life as the notorious queen of comedy struggles to uphold her title among a new deluge of contemporary comedians.

Although the film reveals raw aspects of her non-performance persona, showing quiet moments of self-reflecting doubt, profound interviews and everyday instances that unveil the private guise of her celebrity, Rivers assures she isn’t about to get soft on us.

“When you’re on the stage that’s no place to be vulnerable. I have one job on stage and that is to make my audience laugh,” Rivers said. “It’s never about what I’m doing, it’s about them having a good time. It’s very simple and that’s the mission statement.”

One part of Rivers’ life that still remains uncensored, though, is her critique of Hollywood fashion and style. And after dissecting red-carpet successes and historic style blunders for years with daughter Melissa on the E! channel’s “Fashion Police,” Rivers stands by one timeless fashion rule.

“Keep it simple, simple, simple, do it mostly with accessories and take a chance,” Rivers said. “What’s so terrible? So you look silly for a minute, so what? Fashion should be fun and shouldn’t be taken seriously.”

Who could personify this notion of risk-taking glamour gone wild more than Lady Gaga?

“I think she’s great,” Rivers said. “When she came out with that meat on her head, I kept saying, ‘she looks like a plate of prosciutto, where’s the melon?’ She’s insane but she has the talent to back it up.”

Though Gaga may inspire brave fashionistas of the world everywhere (or possibly just this year’s Halloween costumes), Rivers still acknowledges the classic, demure Hollywood starlets of the past as her childhood inspirations.

“Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, they were glamour ladies… Audrey Hepburn, my god, everyone wanted to be Audrey Hepburn,” Rivers said. “You never saw her in flip flops, you never saw her with torn jeans”

Beyond her legacy in fashion, Rivers has also become synonymous with plastic surgery, some even dub her a “plastic surgery whore.” Though often the brunt of jokes for her unnatural appearance, Rivers brashly embraces her choices, and even wrote a book, “Men Are Stupid … And They Like Big Boobs: A Woman’s Guide to Beauty Through Plastic Surgery” reiterating her beauty philosophy that looks will always matter.

“Absolutely,” Rivers said. “You get noticed in our business if you’re wonderful, gorgeous and beautiful or if you’re smart. That’s the two things that will get any woman for life.”

Though we may not collectively agree with everything Rivers says, from her biting humor, to her merciless style commentary, we can all appreciate her adoration for our cheese.

“I like anything that has ‘ch’ in it.”

Joan Rivers will be at the Overture Center Saturday, Oct. 23 at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $35.