By WENN.com
Davy Jones' Monkees bandmates are planning to stay away from the late singer's funeral in Florida so their frontman can avoid a send-off that becomes a media circus.
Jones' wife and children are hoping to stage a quiet funeral and bandmate Micky Dolenz tells Billboard.com that he'll not attend in a bid to respect the family's wishes. He says, "My understanding is they want to avoid a media circus and... the family wants to keep it very, very low-key and very, very private.
"You can imagine as soon as one or two or any of us were to show up, it would very quickly be degraded into something that I don't think his immediate family would want to deal with. So I'm kind of respecting their wishes, whatever their wishes may be."
But there are plans for public memorials in New York and Jones' native Britain, where Dolenz hopes to bring the surviving Monkees together again. The drummer adds, "He obviously had fans and family and associates on both continents. It's pretty early days, you know, to be making too many plans. I'm still in shock."