AceShowbiz - Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn't fully recovered from the shock caused by "Cats". The damage done by the movie, which is based on his Tony Award-winning stage musical, on his mental is apparently so severe that he now needs a therapy dog with him all the times.

In an interview with Variety, Webber talks about where the Tom Hooper-directed flick went wrong. " 'Cats' was off-the-scale all wrong," he says. "There wasn't really any understanding of why the music ticked at all. I saw it and I just thought, 'Oh, God, no.' "

The English composer admits he hated the movie so much that he got himself a dog, which turns out to be only good thing to come out of it. "It was the first time in my 70-odd years on this planet that I went out and bought a dog," he shares. "So the one good thing to come out of it is my little Havanese puppy."

After the puppy kept him company during the COVID-19 pandemic, Webber says he's figured out a way to bring the pooch with him whenever he travels. "I wrote off [to an airline] and said I needed him with me at all times because I'm emotionally damaged and I must have this therapy dog," he divulges.

The 73-year-old goes on claiming that he used "Cats" as the reason why he needs a therapy dog and it's worked. "The airline wrote back and said, 'Can you prove that you really need him?' And I said 'Yes, just see what Hollywood did to my musical 'Cats'.' Then the approval came back with a note saying, 'No doctor's report required,' " so he says.

Webber composed the musical "Cats", on which the 2019 movie is based. The feature film adaptation went on to be panned by critics and ignored by public, becoming a major box-office bomb that year with $75.5 million global haul on a budget of $80-100 million.