Perhaps you recognize her as a longtime fixture of The Real Housewives of New York. Maybe know her as the cabaret performer who taught us that money can’t buy you class. Or you might’ve caught her turning a small town upside down on the side-splitting series Welcome to Crappie Lake.

No matter how you first encountered Countess Luann de Lesseps, you probably still don’t know her whole story. Her biography includes all sorts of twists and turns, including a meaningful job caring for the elderly, a life-changing day at the Miss Connecticut beauty pageant, a stint as “the Vanna White of Italian television,” a marriage to a French count, and more high-society parties than you can shake a stick at.

And that’s all before she made it to the Bravo airwaves and became one of the network’s most beloved reality stars.

Her story is so compelling that you really deserve to hear it directly from her — and you can do exactly that in the video above (the first of several we’re working on together), in which she walks us through all the exciting chapters she’s managed to pack into a single lifetime.

Whether you’re already a countess convert or this video makes you one, you’ll be thrilled to hear about the other places you can see her these days. She’s looking for someone to set her heart aflame in the new Bravo series Love Hotel, which premieres April 27, and her cabaret spectacular is probably coming to a city near you. You can check out her upcoming dates right here.

And if you’re on the fence about whether seeing the countess live is your speed, we’ll leave you with a final invitation in her own words (courtesy of another of her iconic tracks): “Get your tickets, come and play / Cabaret’s my Cabernet.”