Lizzie Buttrose’s rollercoaster year splitting with fiance and son’s new romance

Screen legend Ita Buttrose is having a hard time running the ABC, but it’s nothing compared to her niece’s rollercoaster year.

Lizzie Buttrose finally broke up with her cage-fighter fiance Zoran Stopar, who was astonishingly the seventh man she has been engaged to.

Then in August, the same month the couple’s split became public, it was revealed her 21-year-old son Andrew Spira was dating a much older woman.

Not only is the Bondi boy’s belle Julia Maguire 36 years old, she is a longtime friend of his mother.

Police were also called to their plush Vaucluse home several times as neighbours complained about loud arguments

Buttrose and Stopar’s relationship breakdown was on the cards for years as the couple engaged in frequent public spats on social media.

Police were also called to their plush Vaucluse home several times as neighbours complained about loud arguments.

The couple moved to Port Douglas in Far North Queensland late last year until Stopar decamped back to Sydney after the split.

Buttrose in August said she was leaning on her iron-willed aunt Ita for support and advice in the aftermath.

Yet another relationship crashing and burning was almost certainly not made any easier by her estranged son’s blossoming romance. 

The couple have been an item for a year and in the months since the world learned of their union via loved-up selfies, Buttrose seems to have accepted it.

In August it was revealed Buttrose’s 21-year-old son Andrew Spira was dating a much older woman – her longtime friend Julia Maguire, 36

Friends claimed Spira’s new love had settled him down a bit and helped heal his relationship with his mother (pictured together) who had feuded in recent years

Friends claimed she was ‘not enthused’ by the paring, but Maguire claims she has since come around.

‘Not at all, I spoke to Lizzie two days ago. The family are all very special to me,’ she told the Sunday Telegraph this weekend.

Buttrose also posted a photo of Maguire and the girlfriend of her younger son James with the caption ‘I’m so lucky! My two daughters-in-law!’ 

Other friends claimed Spira’s new love had settled him down a bit and helped heal his relationship with his mother.

Mother and son were previously so at odds that in 2017 police took out an AVO on Spira’s behalf against his mother after she allegedly threatened him.

The couple now live together in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, and have been on several overseas holidays together

A holiday snap of Spira during one of the couple’s several overseas vacations this year

Buttrose was then hauled before court last year charged with ‘threatening injury’ to her son, who was a witness in a separate case.

Everything was eventually worked out and the charges and AVO were both dropped. 

Maguire and Spira have been linked since he graduated Cranbrook School before finally getting together as a couple early this year. 

Spira, despite only having a Diploma of Finance and Mortgage Broking Management from private college AAMC, styles himself as a business fund manager.

He worked in business development for two firms in 2017 to 2019 before starting Pineapple Funding in Bondi Junction in February.

Maguire unsurprisingly has far more experience, running The Capital Network and ranked as one of Australia’s top 100 entrepreneurs.

The couple now live together in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, and have been on several overseas holidays together. 

Spira, despite only having a Diploma of Finance and Mortgage Broking Management from private college AAMC, styles himself as a business fund manager